The Coromandel Story
Kauri logging in the Kauaeranga Valley lasted 60 years, from 1870, during which 200 million superfeet of timber was removed. A superfoot is a section of timber one foot square and one inch thick — an average kauri contained 1,000-5,000 superfeet, the largest up to 7,000.
The biggest-ever drive in the 1920s sent 28,000 logs downriver. Around 30,000 superfeet of kauri was used to build Dancing Camp Dam. But while between 1,918 and 2,892 million feet of kauri was felled, it is estimated only 77 million feet (20percent) reached the booms. The remainder was lost, most of it smashed up in the driving process. (In the first drive over Billygoat falls, 100,000 feet of kauri went over but only 10,000 came through intact.)
To complete the destruction, huge forest fires often followed the kauri logging. One such fire was set by a sacked bushman, Racehorse Jack, in 1888. It burned three dams and a large area of forest in the Billygoat Basin.
Whitianga Bullock teamWhitianga Bullock team hauling kauri logs, Whitianga, taken in 1913 by an unknown photographer.
Ref. No. 1/2-021556 Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
An end to logging
It's easy to forget that logging of kauri forests continued until comparatively recently. Government policy changed over the years, not only because of the dwindling resource but also in the face of mounting public pressure to save the remaining forests. The New Kauri...
Maori and the Kauri
Professor John Salmon says that to the ancient Maori, kauri ranked second only to the totara in importance. Some of the greatest northern war canoes were constructed out of single massive kauri trunks, felled in the forest after elaborate tapu-lifting ceremonies, then...
Mass Felling
Logs near Coroglen Kauri logs piled up near Coroglen after a log drive down the Waiwawa River. Ref. No. 1/2-022204; G Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of...