A thoughtful and thorough local history of Nelson, focussing on its distinctive coastal barrier – the Boulder Bank
In the first full coverage of this uniquely Nelson feature, local author Karen Warren records the varied history and extended landscape of this splendid natural formation. Not only New Zealand’s largest boulder bank – it turns out to be the biggest in the world. Warren reveals the Boulder Bank’s flora, fauna and human inhabitants, and explains the Bank’s contribution to the region and also its surprising vulnerability. The author has delved into old newspaper files and original documents, talked to the experts and local people and turned over many stones to bring together the comprehensive account of the Bank: its past, present and future.
She covers such little known aspects as the Boulder Bank’s origin in Maori legend and early use by Maori, Haulashore Island’s previously tidal status, the Bank’s belated discovery by Europeans (on the very eve of Nelson’s site selection), its pre-Cut tidal boat passages and old powder magazines. Karen Warren puts on permanent record so many things which have come and gone: the working life of the lighthouse and its keepers, ships careened on Haulashore’s sheltered beach and the drawn-out drama of the Cut and its later re-working. She describes the ways in which the Bank is still growing – as well as recounting things on it that never were: projected causeways and piers, a waterfront promenade and subdivision, and even a plague hospital!
Each page includes colour and B&W photos, art works reproductions, charts, maps, or extracts from newspapers and other publications.
By Karen Warren
2009 Edition, 320 pages, Dimensions: 265 x 210 x 19mm, Soft Cover