wind and water: environmental learning in early colonial new zealand

© 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2006 The New Zealand Geographical Society Inc. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

New Zealand Geographer

(2006)

62

, 39–49 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2006.00047.x

Blackwell Publishing Asia

Research Article

Wind and water

Research Article

Wind and water: Environmental learning in early colonial New Zealand

Peter Holland and Bill Mooney

Department of Geography, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand

Abstract:

In the 19th century, pamphlets and handbooks written for intending settlers oftendepicted New Zealand as environmentally benign. Upon arrival, however, the newcomersexperienced episodes of stormy weather and flooding. They also found greater variationsacross the country, between the seasons, and from year to year, than they had been led toexpect. Primarily by experience, but in part guided by M

å

ori informants, rural people learnedto recognize the signs of impending storms and flooding in lowland rivers. They also cameto appreciate the less predictable features of eastern South Island weather systems, andfound ways to reduce their economic and environmental impact.

Key words:

environmental learning, river discharge, rural settlers, variability, weather systems.

Settlers who came from rural areas, towns andcities in the British Isles to the tussock grasslandsof the eastern South Island of New Zealandencountered physical environmental conditionsprofoundly different from what they hadpreviously known – broad open landscapesbacked by foothills and mountain ranges, largebraided rivers prone to flooding at almost anytime of year, little natural shelter from wind andrain, and a dearth of wood for fuel, fencing andconstruction. They also discovered significantmisrepresentations in the handbooks andpromotional material that had drawn themto New Zealand. In the infant settlement,the weather was king and rural people were itssubjects. The first two generations of Britishsettlers faced many challenges, and one of themost important was to recognize then respondappropriately to the forces of a novel, occasionallyhazardous, physical environment.

This paper primarily concerns wind strengthand direction, precipitation and flooding, heatand cold, all of which were of vital interest tosettlers, particularly in the years before 1880.It draws primarily upon informal accounts ofweather conditions and river discharge from

lowland Canterbury (Fig. 1), supplementedby reports from elsewhere in New Zealand,and relates that information to statements inpublications for intending settlers. As such itfollows the approach of Moon (1969), whofocused on the perceptions and reactions ofearly European settlers in South Australia, butdiffers in not dealing with pictorial representa-tions of the new land. It opens with a criticalreview of publications about the New Zealandenvironment intended to be read by settlers,proceeds to first person accounts of weathersystems and stream flow, documents what ruralpeople discovered at first hand as well as fromlocal M

a

ori about weather systems and theirimpact on the large and medium-sized riversof Canterbury, and closes with a summary ofthe principal environmental lessons learned bytwo generations of settlers in the ‘Britain ofthe South’.

With the notable exception of those under-taken by staff of the Geological Survey of NewZealand, which was founded in 1865 (Govern-ment Statistician 1981), most early studies of theNew Zealand environment were by interestedamateurs, museum staff, provincial government

Note about authors: Peter Holland has been an Emeritus Professor since 2003, and Bill Mooney is the cartographer,in the Department of Geography at the University of Otago.

E-mail: [email protected].

© 2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation

© The New Zealand Geographical Society 2006.

40

P. Holland and B. Mooney

scientists like Julius von Haast and James Hector,and members of regional scientific societies(Robin & Griffiths 2004). The Governmentof the Province of Wellington approved thepurchase of meteorological equipment in 1860,and two years later twice daily observations weretaken at the observatory in central Wellington(Knowles 1863). In 1868 Hector was maderesponsible for meteorological observationsacross New Zealand, and the following yearpublished a compilation of statistical infor-mation received to that date as well as briefdescriptions of the observation sites (Hector

1869). By the 1880s a national network of obser-vatories and experimental stations had beenestablished, and organized scientific study of theNew Zealand environment was well underway.

Sources

Formal weather observations were made incentral Christchurch between 1852 and 1854and from 1864 onwards, at Heathcote on thenorthern flanks of Banks Peninsula between1858 and 1861, and at Bealey on the coach roadto Arthurs Pass from 1867 (Hector 1869). For

Figure 1 New Zealand place names mentioned in the text.



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much of Canterbury, however, formal recordsof weather conditions and river discharge arescarce until the 1870s. In their absence, informalaccounts of daily weather from the late 1840sto the 1870s were sought. Three proved espe-cially useful: the diaries of Charles Torlesse(Maling 1958) for 1848–1851, E.R. Chudleigh’sdiary (Richards 1950) for 1862–1865, and

ThePoint Journal

kept by members of the Phillipsfamily and their employees from 1866 to 1871.Why these people, like other rural folk inCanterbury then and since, kept such detailedenvironmental records is unclear. Torlessemaintained a diary while surveying the areaintended for rural and urban settlement bythe Canterbury Association. As a young stockdrover based at Mount Peel Station in SouthCanterbury, Chudleigh travelled frequentlyacross the Canterbury Plains. He wrote hisdiary daily or at the end of a week then postedthe pages to his mother in Britain. Unlike thosetwo, the writer(s) of

The Point Journal

reportedprimarily on one foothill property and occa-sionally on the sheep runs nearby (Holland &Fitzharris 1990). None of the diarists recordedweather and river discharge with an eye topublication or a wide readership, but all were fineobservers and clearly interested in learningabout their new homes.

The three listed sources of informal weatherinformation contain daily notes on the typeof precipitation, but not the amount, togetherwith wind strength and direction, temperature,humidity and cloudiness. The fullest detail relatesto wind and precipitation. Wind strength wasrecorded by descriptors such as ‘breeze’, ‘strong’,‘gale force’ and ‘hurricane’, and a given winddirection appears to be that which prevailedduring daylight hours. Significant wind shifts,as with the passing of a cold front or an after-noon swing to easterly winds following a morningof westerlies, were frequently noted as was onsetduring the night of a storm from the northwestor southwest. Lesser changes were seldomrecorded, and it is possible that not all windshifts during a day were noted. ‘Overcast skies’,probably because they foreshadow rain, alongwith ‘drizzle’, ‘light rain’, ‘heavy rain’, ‘torrentialrain’, ‘sleet’ and ‘snow’ were frequently recorded,as were major floods and the duration of snow-lie. None of the diaries gives measurements ofbarometric pressure, even though barometers

could then be found in the larger country houses.Relative humidity was described in terms ofhuman comfort: ‘superb weather’, ‘humid’ and‘muggy’, and references to ‘light’ or ‘heavy frosts’,‘warm’ or ‘hot’ days and ‘mild’ or ‘cold’ nightsare common.

Such accounts as those used in this researchare qualitative, even impressionistic, usually ofshort duration, and frequently incomplete, buttaken as a set they can indicate major weatherpatterns and point to significant environ-mental events for a time when formal recordsare not available. Validation is possible whenindependent records for the same generalarea and period are compared, such as the July– August snowstorm of 1867 that adverselyaffected the eastern flanks of the South Island.To facilitate presentation and analysis, obser-vations were assigned to seasons as recognizedby Shortland (1851) and his contemporaries(Government Statistician 1981: 862): spring(September, October and November), summer(December, January and February), autumn(March, April and May), and winter (June, Julyand August). Finally, local histories, unpublisheddiaries, and letter books were checked forinformation about weather systems and streamdischarge given to European settlers by M

a

ori.

Some swells’ stories

If it were to thrive as a commercial enterprise,a colonizing company operating in New Zea-land during the 1840s and 50s had to foster theimpression of a benign physical environmentfor European settlement. In doing so, companypublications were apparently following eye-witness accounts of early visitors like Cruise(1823), who had spent several months in northernNew Zealand waters and reported in favourableterms on the weather. Seventeen years later, ina handbook for intending settlers, the Secretaryof the New Zealand Company described the newcolony as two-thirds cultivable, blessed withpeculiarly rich forest soils, having few earth-quakes, and enjoying one of the most equableclimates on earth (Ward 1840). Those words wereechoed in a letter written on 29 February 1842by William Bayly, a recent settler in Taranaki,to his family in England, and subsequentlypublished in a New Zealand Company promo-tional tract: ‘I believe for climate and soil not



42


better [is] to be found in the known world’(Anonymous 1843).

At various times Private Secretary to GovernorHobson and Sub-Protector of the Aborigines,Edward Shortland (1851: 161) inferred that NewZealand must enjoy ‘a remarkably equabletemperature’ because of its position at the heartof what is now termed the ocean hemisphere.Although he had access to only scant recordsfor Akaroa and Auckland, he first comparedtheir ‘mean annual temperatures’ with thoseof London, Madeira, Naples, Nice and Sydneythen estimated that the average temperaturedifference between northern and southern NewZealand should be the same as that betweenNaples and Jersey. Meinig (1962: 15) notedmuch the same for an area of South Australiawhere explorers had inferred a Mediterraneanclimate that ‘prompted the promoters of thecolony to envision the production of such charac-teristic crops as citrus, olives and wine grapes’despite the dearth of surface water.

On the few occasions when extreme environ-mental events were acknowledged in a colonizingcompany’s promotional materials they wereusually depicted in a favourable light: ‘Now aflood in New Zealand seems to produce anopposite effect to what it does in England, ora colder climate to ours; it produces a fertilisingeffect in the deposit which it leaves, and, as itwould appear, a salutary effect in destroyingthe [grass] grub’ (Letter 21, by R Stokes, a recentsettler in Wellington, dated October 1842, andpublished in a New Zealand Company promo-tional tract (Anonymous 1843)).

In the 1850s and 60s, Arthur Willis, Gann andCompany of London published editions of ahandbook for intending colonists in which arenamed six distinguishing features of NewZealand: good harbours, proximity to theAustralian market, occasional earthquakes,a legacy of poor government, fertile soils, andone of the finest climates in the world. While thefirst four were essentially correct, the remain-ing two were soon contested by settlers. Scantinformation was provided to newcomers aboutgeographical variation and seasonal changein environmental conditions, let alone extremeweather and hydrological events.

Charles Hursthouse, one of the more shadowyfigures in the colonial enterprise and an enthu-siastic publicist for New Zealand, saw virtue in

the environmental challenges awaiting Britishsettlers in the new land. In his opinion, eventhough New Zealand might experience heavierrainfall than Britain it cannot be described asa damp country because it is ‘well-drained andits boisterous coastal winds ensure a bracing,temperate climate’. He did, however, acknowl-edge the ‘vicious character’ of Canterbury’s‘profusion of rivers’, describing them as its greatestdrawback. He also mentioned south-west galesand the ‘Slight falls [of snow that] occasionallysprinkle the southern plains of Canterburyand Otago’ (Hursthouse 1861: 68), and advisedinclusion of a barometer in the luggage of afamily relocating to New Zealand (Hursthouse1861: 269). What must have carried the day formany of his readers, however, were his referencesto fertile soils ready for the plough, weather thatallows some crop plants to grow year-round,and a climate that ‘is even more [conducive to]agriculture than the soil’ (Hursthouse 1861: 186).His message to intending settlers was clear: moveto New Zealand, secure a piece of land to farm,bring an open mind, and learn for yourself.

Two decades later, Hering (1882) noted thata New Zealand farmer could run the plough 300days a year, compared with 200 days in Britain,ascribing that to the excellence of the NewZealand climate. Another commentator, Bateman(1881), referred to the ‘almost inexhaustiblerichness’ of the soil (p. 146) as well as to thewesterly winds that ‘blow periodically with greatviolence’ (p. 16). His summary of weather andclimate compares closely with what had beenwritten by others 30 years before. ‘There is nota single locality or country in Europe that has,generally speaking, such an equable temperatureduring the year as that of New Zealand [ … ] Theclimate is extremely agreeable and salubrious,there being a marked absence of either intenseheat or cold. But the changes, in the moresouthern parts, are sometimes somewhatsudden and varied’ (Bateman 1881: 54).

To 21st-century eyes, what stands out inearly-published accounts of New Zealand isthe impression of an environmentally homo-geneous, even subtropical, country. Also appar-ent is the absence of physical environmentaldetail, notably, extremes of rainfall and theireffects on stream courses and subsurfacewater, the occasionally heavy falls of snow tolow altitudes, seasonal change in weather systems,



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the complex wind field of eastern South Island,and spatial and temporal variability in temper-ature and precipitation. Even the locally pub-lished and widely read

Brett’s Colonists’ Guide

of 1897 subdivided the country on the basisof average rainfall, average temperature, andaverage duration of the growing season for aselection of crop and garden plants. The actualmeasurements and the reliability of this parti-tioning were not, however, revealed.

First lessons

Wind and rain

Edward Shortland (1851: 191), who had walkedfrom Bluff to Banks Peninsula, wrote about thesudden onset of a strong, cold, south-westerlywind that ‘often continues to blow for three orfour days’ in east coastal South Island. A near-contemporary described the climate of Canter-bury ‘as a mixture of the climates of the Southof France and the Shetland Islands, the formergreatly predominating’ (Paul 1857: 36). RobertPaul, who had travelled by foot throughout thenorthern half of the South Island, also remarkedon the strong winds of New Zealand, comparedwith the gentle winds of England, and noted howsummer is quickly turned into winter with theonset of weather from the southerly quadrant.

A settler in the Waipara district (Courage1896: 28) kept a diary for friends and family inEngland. It was later recast for a book abouther years in North Canterbury, starting 1863:‘It is a decidedly windy country, and is alwaysblowing from some quarter. The nor’west windsin summer are the most trying of all, and onlycolonial born people or Australians can bearthem with any comfort, the heat at times beingsimply unbearable, making one feel irritable,languid or depressed’. The manifestly disap-pointed ‘Hopeful’ (1887) went even further,dismissing New Zealand as an ugly flat coun-try, Wellington as an excessively windy placesubject to frequent earthquakes, and Dunedinas cold and wet. As the Pillans family of InchClutha in South Otago recorded in their diary,‘One remarkable feature in the New Zealandweather is that we have seldom or ever thefine genial showers so often experienced athome [in northern Italy]. When rain falls hereit is almost always accompanied with a coldwind, making a continuance of wet weather far

from agreeable’ (entry for 26 October 1849 inthe Pillans diary, translated copy held by theHocken Library, Dunedin).

That lowland Canterbury is a windy place wasevident to Charles Torlesse. While surveying thearea intended for settlement by the CanterburyAssociation he kept a diary in which he sum-marized each day’s weather (Roche 1984). Whenplotted (Fig. 2) his qualitative descriptions ofwind speed and direction show that most daysin 1849 were windy and that strong winds werenot confined to one season. Sequences of dayswith wind from the same quarter, a recognizedmeasure of variability, tended to be short, witha median run length of two days (Fig. 3). West-erly winds were experienced throughout theyear but easterlies were relatively common insummer (Fig. 4). Roche (1984: 68) states thatthere is nothing in his diaries to indicate whyTorlesse ‘so meticulously recorded the weatheron a daily basis for a 10-year period’, but theseclear patterns in the weather would not haveescaped his notice.

Strong winds were of concern to the firstgeneration of settlers in lowland Canterbury,as this entry for 5 August 1864 in Chudleigh’sdiary (Richards 1950: 141) shows:

We had a perfect hurricane [at Mount PeelStation] last night. One window with the bestplate glass was blown in and smashed, brickswere blown down from the chimney, every-thing [was] cleared from the verandah, a [meat]safe was blown open, the top was blown offanother chimney, the laundries were takenclean away, two doors and a boarded windowwere smashed in or out, the ridge boards weretaken off another house, a manure cart wasrun backwards for 10 yards and then turnedupside down against a window, the thatch wasblown off the end of a house, three ricks wereblown down, ditto an old cowshed, anotherwindow was blown clean out of the men’s house,a piano case went bush at a rate of knots …

The seasonal nature of lowland Canterburyweather is evident in the daily records ofTorlesse (Maling 1958) and Chudleigh (Richards1950), with the latter hinting at significantbetween-year variability (Fig. 5).

The variable winds of inland Canterbury werealso evident to residents of The Point Station



44


(Table 1) in the eastern foothills of mid-Canterbury. Westerly winds were experiencedthroughout the year between 1866 and 1871, butthose from the easterly quadrant were especiallycommon in spring and summer.

It is uncertain if lowland Canterbury was awindier place early in the colonial period thana century later, although long-term residents

like Robert Hammond, recalling his days atTe Moana and Four Peaks Stations in SouthCanterbury (Pearce 1993), felt that it was. Thenorthwest winds of late 1878 were particularlysevere, and showed rural people the importanceof correctly positioned and orientated planta-tions of trees and windbreaks (Brown 1940;Price 1993).

Although occasionally experienced acrosslowland Canterbury, drought was not mentionedin promotional material or early handbooks,yet in 1878 Christchurch received less thanhalf its normal rainfall and grain yields wereso low on the Plains that it was not economicto reap the crop (Bateman 1881).

Figure 2 Daily wind direction and strength in lowland Canterbury, 1849 (information extracted from Maling 1958).

Figure 3 Runs of days in lowland Canterbury during1849 with the same reported wind direction (derivedfrom Figure 2).

Table 1 Average relative frequency for eachseason, as percentage, of days with windsreported from the named direction at The PointStation in inland mid-Canterbury, 1866–1871

Wind direction Spring Summer Autumn Winter

NE 26 21 23 4SE 4 6 3 1SW 15 17 21 28NW 55 56 53 67

Source: Extracted from The Point Journal.



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Flood

In 1860, the Editor of the

Lyttelton Times

, CrosbieWard, wrote ‘The Town and the Torrent’, a poemabout the Waimakariri River (in Alpers 1900),the first verse of which follows:

At Avonhead lived one Mister Brae,Who every morning used to say‘I would not be much surprised todayIf Christchurch City was swept awayBy the rushing, crushing, flushing, gushingWaimakariri River’.

He was not the first, and would not be the last,settler to apprehend the destructive power ofa large New Zealand river in full spate, or therisks posed by the Waimakariri River to theinfant settlement of Christchurch. In a letterwritten on 16 August 1849 to Edward Stafford,Torlesse noted that the Rangitata, Rakaiaand Waimakariri rivers are prone to flooding insummer (Maling 1958). The novelist, politicalcommentator and early settler, Samuel Butler(1863), wrote that settlers disliked these largerivers initially but later became unreasonablyfoolhardy when crossing them. Death by drown-ing struck at all levels of settler society, taking

young men like Constantine Dillon (1813–1853)who was Sir George Grey’s Civil and MilitarySecretary until his accidental death in theWairau River (Sharp 1954).

In early colonial times rivers regulated thelives of rural people, and a river crossing at anytime of year could be a perilous exercise. Thewords of Kennaway (1874, 52) must have beenon the minds of many 19th century travellerswhen they reached the banks of a large easternSouth Island river in flood to look ‘hopelesslyacross two hundred yards of thick, rapid water,and wonder how on earth you are going toget yourself, your horses, your baggage, anda thousand sheep to the other side.’ It couldtake an experienced shepherd two days toshift a large mob of sheep over a flooded river.Sometimes individual sheep had to be slungover saddles and carried across by horse. TheRangitata River was especially trying. In aletter to J.R. Godley dated 8 June 1852, W.H.Valpy described it as dangerous to cross becauseof the strength of its current and the presenceof quicksand (Andersen 1916). To that list, laterobservers added its boulder-strewn bed and an8 to 16 miles per hour flow rate when in flood(Brown 1940). Like the Waitaki, Rakaia and

Figure 4 Relative frequencies of easterly and westerly winds reported for lowland Canterbury from December1848 to March 1851 (information extracted from Maling 1958).



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Hurunui rivers it was regarded as dangerous tocross at any time of year and a trap for theincautious (Bateman 1881).

Winter cold

In his report to the Canterbury Association (inAndersen 1916, 57–8), Torlesse described theclimate of lowland Canterbury as comparableto that of other parts of New Zealand, withthree winter months and a risk of frost for thefive months from mid-April. Entries in early rural

workers’ and farm diaries show that winter snowinitially came as a surprise: ‘Snowed from 12all day till Sunday. This is the country in which itnever snows according to some Swell’s accounts’(E.R. Chudleigh, diary entry for 5 July 1862 inRichards 1950). There was a particularly severesnowstorm in Canterbury from late July toearly August 1867 (Holland & Fitzharris 1990)and it brought financial hardship to many back-country and high plains residents (Broome 1904).One important lesson, quickly learned by back-country run holders, was to stop mobs of sheepfrom moving on to frozen lakes and ponds wherethe wind kept snow from accumulating (Brown1940). Currents of relatively warm waterupwelling from the lakebed or flowing in fromthe side could melt the cover of ice from itsbase and the sheep might drown.

M

8

ori informants

Walter Mantell (in Gillespie 1958) and EdwardShortland (1851) learned much about the eastcoast South Island environment from their M

a

oriassistants and travelling companions, but theyknew the language and respected M

a

ori knowl-edge, culture and society. They and otherEuropeans reported that M

a

ori associatedflowering in kowhai with the onset of springweather, considered that snow melt in thewestern mountains would lead to flooding inthe lowland reach of a large river a day or twolater, recognized diurnal variations in the flowrates of large rivers, taught European travel-lers how to cross a river in flood, and stressedthe importance of rafting a large river in themorning before the wind rose and madenavigation difficult in the choppy water. It isnot known how much such information spreadamongst European settlers, but Lady Barker(1870) described M

a

ori as ‘strong in weathertraditions’. Similarly, Andersen (1916: 116) wrotethat M

a

ori at Temuka had ‘prophesied that asecond big flood would follow the first [whichbegan on 2–3 February 1868] after a month’sinterval’ but did not say how they knew that.It is implicit in the documentary materialsanalyzed for this research that environmentallearning amongst European settlers in ruralCanterbury, unless they had a good workingknowledge of te reo M

a

ori or employed localM

a

ori as guides or farm hands, was primarilyrooted in first hand experience.

Figure 5 Reported weather conditions in lowland Can-terbury (a) from the summer of 1848–49 to autumn1851, and (b) from autumn 1862 to spring 1865 (infor-mation extracted from Maling 1958 and Richards 1950,respectively).



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Emergent environmental understanding

In 1849, Charles Torlesse distinguished betweenstreams rising in the western foothills and riversrising farther back in the mountains of theSouthern Alps. The former, he believed, wererain fed whereas the latter were fed by meltingsnow and particularly prone to flooding in latespring and early summer (in Andersen 1916).He also understood the different challenges theypose for people and animals when crossing them.For his part, Samuel Butler (1863), who settledMesopotamia Station in the upper Rangitatavalley, recognized that snowmelt alone isinsufficient to account for a flood surge duringa northwest gale; that also requires heavy rainin the backcountry. When conditions are right,as Chudleigh (in Richards 1950) wrote, a rivercan remain high for several days at certain timesof year: ‘We are in a state of doubt about theRakaia, there has been a norwester in the hillsfor four or five days and there is every chanceof the river being bank high and not passablefor a week, the first fresh [of spring] is alwaysthe highest’ (entry dated 26 September1862).

Torlesse (in Maling 1958) noted days withnortheasterly winds on the Canterbury Plainsand north-westerlies in the western mountains.Like Shortland (1851), he recognized thecomplex wind field of the Pegasus Bay coastalstrip: on 21 August 1850 there were westerliesat Riccarton, north-easterlies at sea, and north-westerlies on the Port Hills. To Paul (1857)temporal variability in the weather made springthe least agreeable season in lowland Canterbury.In comparison, the weather from January to Junewas described as more settled. At shearing timein summer variable weather could lead to costlydelays, and men in charge of mobs of sheep orcattle grew to respect the way that Canterburyrivers at any time of year can quickly rise andas quickly fall (Courage 1896). A large river couldchange from a network of shallow streamsseparated by gravel bars to a broad, rushingtorrent in a few hours (Gillespie 1958).

At the same time as they were learning howto read the large rivers of Canterbury, settlerswere gaining an understanding of three influential,regional weather systems: the north-westerliesthat Chudleigh termed the universal winds of

summer and which can bring heavy rain or snowto the backcountry; the south-westerly winds ofwinter that affect the Plains but seldom extendfar into the western hills and mountains; and theeasterly winds of late spring and early summer.The example of Robert Buick, a long-timeresident of Ashburton County, shows the impor-tance of environmental learning to rural people.According to Brown (1940) he could anticipatethe unexpected, knew when major stock losseswere likely, recognized that unseasonal snowis an occasional feature of the high plains, andlearned where to erect buildings and plantshelter for protection from high winds.

Once settlers had perceived functional linkagesbetween the weather in the western mountainsand the state of large rivers on the Plains, theylearned to read and interpret such warning signsas a northwest arch over the western mountains,rising water levels in the large rivers, discolouredriver water, and flotsam. By 1912–1913, R.H.Rhodes of Blue Cliffs Station ‘like most coun-try men of his day could foretell the weatherwith considerable accuracy’ (Woodhouse 1982:121). He knew the signs of a coming north-wester or a southerly buster, and taught hisdaughter that a strand of low clouds along theeastern face of the Hunters Hills meant rainwithin 48 hours. Elsewhere in Canterbury otherlocal weather lore developed: rain by 7:00 amon Mount Hutt signifying clearing weather by11:00 am; and visibility of the ‘weather tree’, alarge totara that until the 1970s grew on theHunters Hills west of Waimate, indicating theend of a rain spell. All point to the emergenceof informal understanding about local weatherpatterns in the period before daily weatherforecasts were readily available.

Challenge and response

The ability of the first two generations of Euro-pean settlers in rural Canterbury to cope withthe challenges of a new environment was put tothe test by the severe snowstorms of 1867, 1887and 1895, widespread flooding in 1868, 1878 and1886, and drought in 1879. Their experiencesfrequently differed from what the colonizingcompanies’ handbooks and promotional materialshad led them to expect, and until the advent oforganized scientific study of the environmentthey had to learn for themselves:



48


expectations had been unduly raised by therepresentation of interested persons inEngland, who poured into not unwilling earsthe most exaggerated stories of the beautyof the scenery the more than Italian brillian-cy of the sky, the delicious mildness of theclimate, and the ease with which fortunes weresure to be made. They landed and found thevaunted Canterbury Plains [ … ] little betterthan a howling wilderness [ … ] Their welcomewas sung perhaps by the terrible south-westwind, with its driving rain or sleet (Paul1857: 12).

Belich (1996) noted that first the colonizingcompanies then government misrepresentedconditions in the infant colony, and the followingquotation from a Scottish newspaper supportsthat stance. ‘New Zealand is the most frequentand insatiable borrower among our children, andshe is the one who most ostentatiously paradesin print her wonderful progress, her astoundingenterprise, and her incalculable resources. Truthto tell, we are getting somewhat wary of theboasts and promises of the “Britain of theAntipodes” ’ (in Bateman 1881: 127).

The weather in east coast South Island duringthe late 1840s and early 1850s appears to havebeen slightly milder than that of the next twodecades. Smith (1899: 20), quoting ‘old colonists’,felt that ‘extensive annual burning of sheepruns to promote a growth of young grass’ and‘removal of the dense tussock grasses whichhad formerly covered the Canterbury Plainsand replacing it with a colder vegetation [i.e.improved pasture based on introduced grassesand clovers] [ … ] is probably the chief cause ofthe [area’s] increasingly frosty winters’. What-ever the explanation, until rural people couldoccupy comfortable homes, derive benefit fromshelter plantings, gain ready access to fuel andlumber, and cross swollen rivers safely theywould remain vulnerable to the adverse effectsof stormy weather and floods in the open countryof the eastern South Island.

The first rural settlers had not anticipated, andwere ill-prepared for, the rapid onset of adverseweather, the windiness of lowland Canterbury,and the high order of variability over days, weeks,months, even years, let alone across the Plains.Moon (1969: 47) found much the same in SouthAustralia where ‘the variability of rainfall which

is now recognized was not noted in the earlyperiod’. As Torlesse observed, east to westdifferences in daily weather conditions are morepronounced than differences between thenorthern and southern ends of the Plains. It isa seasonal climate, albeit much less so than whatsettlers had known in Britain, and is characterizedby the variable weather systems of a mid-latitudeoceanic climate where the weather in the foothillsand western mountains may affect river dischargeon the Plains within hours.

The weather was not entirely bad, as LadyBroome (1904) recalled three decades after sheand her husband had left New Zealand. For muchof the time it was as benign as the colonizingcompanies’ promotional material had described,but settlers learned that New Zealand is environ-mentally diverse, and that the weather variessignificantly over short distances as well asthroughout the year. It was this variability thatposed significant challenges to the first genera-tion of European settlers. Just as Meinig (1962)found in South Australia, so rural people in thetussock grasslands of the South Island had tolearn to recognize the novel environmental forcesof their new home then apply appropriate farmingpractices to minimize adverse effects.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the assistance ofPhilippa Dixon, Simon Latimer, AlexanderWearing and Donna Woodley in locating docu-mentary materials, and the helpful commentsof Sean Fitzsimons, Eric Pawson, Robert Peden,Jim Williams and participants in the 12th Inter-national Conference of Historical Geographers.A copy of

The Point Journal

. was provided bythe Canterbury Museum and is cited with thepermission of the owner. This research wassupported by funding from a Marsden Grant(Principal Investigators Tom Brooking andEric Pawson).

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