Gum-digging & land clearance

The plunder did not stop at timber. Wherever we kauri had grown, semi-fossilised gum lay above and beneath the ground, lasting evidence of our ancient presence.

Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library (copyright) Throughout our lifetime, we exude large quantities of this gum, sealing off damaged surfaces to slow down decay.

Not long after the Europeans began settling around the harbour below us, gum-diggers began regularly probing the ground for large quantities of gum to trade. At the same time as our timber was shipped offshore, our gum was sent to manufacturers of varnish in Britain and America. Soon gum-digger camps sprang up on the bleak scrubland that now grew below our ridge. Over the next 50 years we watched as teams of mainly Dalmatian immigrants transformed the search for gum from individual digging into industry. They systematically stripped away the surface of already dug-over land to extract the last gum that lay beneath. As the diggers moved on, they were replaced by farmers who converted the now desolate landscape to rough pasture for stock