Trip to Northland
In the Term 1 2023 school holidays, some of the JBS staff went on a trip to Northland. This trip was one of our PD. I was, in particular, excited about this trip and was looking forward to going on this trip. The main focus of the trip was to learn the wonderful histories of the Northland. I was in search of a New Zealand history for my Inquiry LTP for term 2. So I decided to get on this trip.
While we were in Northland, we learned numerous histories of the various parts of the region. One particular history that caught my attention was the Kauri Gum Field. The history behind the Kauri Gum Field is as follows below.
Kauri gum is a resin (a sticky substance) produced by New Zealand’s giant kauri trees. The resin helps protect the tree by filling in holes and damaged areas. Kauri trees can live for more than 1,000 years, so they make a lot of gum over a lifetime. As the trees die and fall, the ground where they grew becomes littered with kauri gum. Over time, this often gets covered by soil or swamps. Most kauri gum is found in Northland.
From the 1840s, kauri gum was exported to Britain and America to make varnish. Later, it was used in linoleum, a floor covering. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many people headed for the gum fields of Northland, hoping to find gum and sell it. They dug it out of the ground and found it in the swamps. Many of these areas no longer had kauri trees – they were scrublands covered in mānuka.
In the 1890s, it was getting harder to find gum in the ground. People started climbing living kauri trees to get gum. Some cut the trees, to make them bleed gum – but this often killed the trees.
The kauri gum industry continued into the 20th century. In the 1930s, cheaper materials for making varnish were invented. The price of kauri gum fell, and by the 1940s the gum industry was coming to an end.
What has once forested the most part of the Northland has deliberately disappeared. Only a few Kauri trees are left and they are completely protected.
Dalmatians, Māori, and British worked as diggers. They used a spear to find gum and a specially designed spade to dig it up. Storekeepers bought kauri gum from diggers. It was then taken to the nearest port and shipped to Auckland, where gum merchants cleaned it, graded it, and exported it. From 1850 to 1900, kauri gum was Auckland’s main export.
By the 1890s, it was getting harder to find gum in the ground. Some diggers began collecting gum from around the base of living trees and using ropes to climb to the forks where the gum was often found.They also started cutting trees to make them bleed gum. They made V-shaped cuts called ‘taps’ in the trunk, returning months later to get the gum. Collectors used spikes on their boots and two long iron hooks to scale the tall trunks – in much the same way that ice climbers today scale frozen waterfalls with ice axes and crampons. The collectors carried ropes to get back down from the giant trees, which could be up to 50 meters high. It was dangerous work, and lives were lost. One story tells of some loggers finding a rope at the base of a large kauri. They felled the tree, and among the branches found the skeleton of a gum collector who must have climbed the tree and then dropped his rope.
At first, bled gum was seen as a ready new supply, although of poorer quality. However, it was soon clear that the practice was killing trees, and in 1905 it was banned in all state forests.
Storekeepers were the main buyers of kauri gum. They ‘grubstaked’ many diggers – allowed them to buy supplies on credit, on condition that they sold their findings to the storekeeper. Once a week the storekeeper did his rounds, delivering supplies and buying gum.
Gum was laid out at the gum tip – a cleared area, often on a rise so that it received the sun and wind. The gum’s purity was judged, a price was decided and the gum was weighed. Horse-drawn carts and large bullock teams pulled the gum on sleds to the nearest port. It was loaded onto barges, coastal cutters, and steamers, and shipped to Auckland. In the wet months, when Northland’s clay roads were boggy, transport costs often increased and supplies became more expensive.
Gum was unloaded at Auckland’s wharves and taken to the major buyers’ warehouses. It was then cleaned again and graded, ready for export. Gum was exported in boxes made from heart kauri, a high-quality timber that was often used to make furniture at the destination.
In the 1930s cheaper synthetics were developed for making varnish and linoleum. The price of gum fell, and by the 1940s it was a sunset industry. In 1985 a processing plant was built at Kaimaumau, north of Awanui, to extract resins and waxes from kauri chips and dust from a peat swamp, but it had technical problems and closed in 1989.
in varnish, but around 1910, overseas manufacturers began using poorer-grade gum to make linoleum. A market was created for low-grade gum, including small pieces known as gum nuts and chips, and previously worthless scrapings and dust.
New techniques were needed to recover small gum pieces from soil and swamps. Water-filled drums with screens – called hurdy-gurdies – washed away the soil and left behind the gum and bits of wood. Where large areas were dug over, pipes poured muddy water onto screens and sieves, and men agitated the mixture to wash away the soil. It was muddy, wet work. By the 1920s, new machines – basically larger oil-driven hurdy-gurdies, used by teams of men – could process a lot more raw material.
The material that was left after washing – gum, stones, bits of wood and debris – was dried in the sun. Then it was winnowed by throwing it in the air. A breeze carried away the lighter pieces, leaving gum behind. Later, winnowing machines were built, along with machines to separate the gum from worthless material and to clean it. Gold mining techniques were trialed – in the late 1910s a disused Otago gold dredge worked a swamp near Awanui, but without success.
Below is the link that tells the story of our trip to Northland.
https://tome.app/jbs-a12/whakarongo-ki-te-hikoi-ki-te-rerenga-wairua-clgzkan6v00sb9r3z2t07uz4l
