Early European explorers searched for routes that travellers could use to cross between the eastern and western sides of the South Island. A party led by Julius Haast travelled up the headwaters of the Makarora River in January 1863. On the 23rd they reached the open, boggy summit of the pass, which is surrounded by beech forest. Haast made this watercolour which was used to illustrate a later report. The party crossed the pass and travelled downstream to the coast, which they reached on 20 February.
The prospector Charles Cameron is thought to have been the first European to ‘discover’ the pass, but Haast was rewarded by having it named after him.
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Reference: A-149-011
by Johann Franz Julius von Haast
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.