Cook Strait was an important region for shore whaling because it was on the migratory route of right whales. Just north of the strait, on Kāpiti Island, a substantial station operated at Waiorua Beach in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The station is depicted in Walter Bowring’s 1907 watercolour from an original sketch made by J. A. Gilfillan in 1844.
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Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:
D-018-012
Watercolour by C. A. Fleming
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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