Maori History

Ruapehu te maunga —

Whanganui te awa —

Te Atihau nui a paparangi te iwi

Ruapehu is the mountain —

Whanganui is the river —

Te Atihau nui a paparangi are the people

… traditional Whanganui River saying

Most of the population of the early period of the occupancy of the river were descendants of the Aotea canoe. The tribal name was then known as Te Atihau. In later years it became Te Atihau nui a paparangi. In those early days the river was cut into three divisions, each placed under the care of taniwha. The upper section was from the source of the river at the base of Mt Tongariro through Taumarunuui to Retaruke.

The middle section was Retaruke to Ranana and the bottom section onwards to Putiki.

In 1988 the Whanganui River Maori Trust Board was constituted. Its beneficiaries are the descendants and hapu of Tama Upoko, Hinengakau and Tupoho.

Transport

For generations Maori used the Whanganui for travel and transport by canoe. The first white person is thought to have travelled up the river in 1831. Traders soon followed. The first steamer, the Wonga Wonga, sailed up to Whanganui in 1857, later reaching Kaiwhaiki.

During unrest in  the 1860s paddle steamers Gundagai, Sandfly and Moutoa penetrated further upriver with the Moutoa reaching Pipiriki. With the return of peace in the 1870s, steamers began to appear on the lower river.

The riverboat service to Pipiriki, using the steamer Tuhua, began in 1886 but it was 1903 before the top end of the river was improved sufficiently to enable A Hatrick and Co vessels to reach Taumarunui. Hartrick’s first boat, the Wairere, made its maiden trip to Pipiriki in 1891. Over the next three decades Hatrick’s fleet dominated the river, becoming a vital transport link and earning a world-wide reputation as the Whanganui’s scenic qualities were recognised and widely publicised.

Reminders of those halcyon days linger on with the tourist operations of the Waimarie and the Wairua.

Farming Settlement scheme

In 1917 one of the most remote valleys of the Upper Whanganui River was hastily opened up by the Government for settlement by Discharged Servicemen from the 1914-18 World War. Soon, nearly forty enthusiastic returned soldiers and their families fought with great courage to establish farms in this alien land.

However, this last great rural pioneering scheme in New Zealand proved a complete and utter failure. One by one, the settlers discovered they were chasing a rainbow of illusion and had to abandon their hard-won farms and walk off their land without any compensation. The last two settlers had to leave when Cabinet officially closed the treacherous access road in 1942.

Now this valley is quickly reverting to native bush and the only reminders of twenty-five years of occupation are the fast-disappearing remains of farm houses, farms and road works.The best known of these is the impressive concrete bridge across the Mangapurua Gorge – usually called ‘The Bridge to Nowhere”. This bridge, which has hardly been used, gave good access, too late, to this fascinating area, which to this day still weaves it’s enchantment over all who visit it – a valley of abandoned dreams. 

Power Scheme

In 1959 the Government announced that plans were under way to investigate building a 540ft earth dam at Parikino, creating a lake stretching some 90 miles inland, with many side arms. The possibility of a hydro-electric power scheme on the lower Whanganui River caused a great deal of debate and angst before the idea was finally abandoned.

The first site probed, at Kaiwhaiki, was deemed unsuitable because of a 30m layer of assorted silts, gravels and old timber beneath the river bed. This type of material would not carry the weight of a high level earth dam. Drillers then moved to Atene but came to the same conclusions.

However, the Whanganui did not get away unscathed following the diversion of mid North Island streams and rivers for the Tongariro power development scheme from the mid-1960s. This resulted in many years of legal action to force Electricorp to release more of the natural flow back into its original channels. In 1992, a High Court ruling meant Electricorp had to reduce its intake from the Whanganui watershed from the previous 97% to 78%.