Heritage Talk - Te Repo o Hikurangi | Hikurangi Swamp

Different Layers of Place

Talk date: 25 September 2024.

Hikurangi just north of Whangārei is a fascinating place. The area used to be one of Aotearoa’s biggest wetlands before it was mostly drained during the 20th century.

For Māori Te Repo o Hikurangi (the Hikurangi Swamp) was and still is a rich resource for kai (food) and materials, such as tuna (eels), manu (birds) and kōrari (flax). When Europeans settled in this area, they started to clear the bush. The timber trade and the discovery of coal at the end of the 19th century were responsible for the initial growth and prosperity of Hikurangi township.

In the early 20th century, drainage schemes to convert wetlands into pasture for farmland meant the Hikurangi Swamp began to be drained in earnest - increasing milk production for the local dairy factory. As a result of these industries Hikurangi developed into a thriving little town with its own council, shops and places for entertainment.

Lisa Clunie and Thorsten Hoppe talked about the history of the Hikurangi Swamp accompanied by some information about Hikurangi’s wider industrial and social history. They will discuss some of the numerous aspects that make the area so interesting. 

Photo above of the Hikurangi Swamp taken by Lisa Clunie 2020.

About Thorsten Hoppe and Lisa Clunie

Thorsten Hoppe moved in 2016 from Germany to Aotearoa New Zealand. He is a trained historian (Master in History, Linguistic and East European Studies from University of Hamburg, 2005), musician and sound artist. Together with Lisa Clunie he organised the exhibition wet_land about the Hikurangi repo (swamp). It was shown at the Whangārei Art Museum and at Photospace in Wellington in 2020/21. Thorsten is the current chairperson of the Hikurangi Historical Museum.

Lisa Clunie is a local artist and arts educator. She volunteers at the Hikurangi Historical Museum and lives in Hikurangi. Lisa is interested in the ways in which the creative arts and history intersect and can be used to bring communities closer together. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree and Diploma in Secondary School Teaching (Otago, 1996, 1998) and completed a Masters of Philosophy Degree (Canberra, 2014).