Mr. R. S. Odell, in a treatise on the well-known Arthur Pass National Park in the Southern Alps, has done some very creditable research work in tracing the names of many of the features to their sources. Here is a selection from the very interesting chronicle:—

The Torlesse Range as seen from Springfield, South Island, New Zealand.
(Photo, J. D. Pascoe.)

When the gold rush to the West Coast began in 1863, and the need became apparent for better communication across the mountain range than the Teramakau Saddle offered, the Canterbury Provincial Government set its surveyors to find the passes which led from the Canterbury valleys to those of the West Coast. The valleys of the Waimakariri tributaries promised best, but Mr. T. Cass, Chief Surveyor, writing to the Provincial Secretary on 27th March, 1863, said:—“I have personally very little doubt on the subject as I have frequently questioned Maoris, and they have invariably answered that there was no pass in that direction. Had such been known to their ancestors when the country was more thickly populated the fact would have been handed down to the present generation among their other traditions.”

This letter is surprising, for the pass at the head of the Otira was certainly known to the Maoris. The chief, Tarapuhi, who was paramount on the West Coast, made several trips across the island (via the Teramakau Saddle) and he knew about this pass, for he told Leonard Harper about it in 1857, and that gentleman was only prevented from exploring it by bad weather and lack of food. Tarapuhi also described the pass to Arthur Dobson, for when the latter discovered it, in 1864, he recognised it as the one described by Tarapuhi.

Even before this, in 1848, the West Coast Maoris told Thomas Brunner about a pass into the Waimakariri, and from this information Brunner indicated it on his map. But it was a long time since any Maoris had crossed this pass, the way over the Teramakau Saddle was so much easier. Tarapuhi told Leonard Harper that not during his lifetime had the pass been crossed.

In 1928 the Honorary Geographic Advisory Board determined that the name for the National Park should be Arthur Pass National Park. This was in pursuance of a policy of refraining from using possessive endings in place names. The action met with some criticism from the people of Canterbury, who felt that the honour due to Sir Arthur was being in some way lessened, and perhaps some resentment that existing names could be changed so arbitarily. This latter sentiment, however, is due to a misapprehension, for no existing name was changed. A territory was given a name for the first time. The Pass, the Township, and the Railway Station, are still Arthur's.

Agility Creek.

This is the name given to the largest creek entering the Mingha on the west side, by the Mountaineering Club party which explored the region during Christmas, 1929. The name was given because of the gymnastics needed for crossing the creek and gorge, but it suggests also the active, leaping waters of the mountain stream.

Barrack Creek.

This creek enters the Otira River from the east, just below the traffic bridge. It was so named because police barracks were erected there at the time of the gold escort fiasco. When access was made to the West Coast by the construction of the road over Arthur's Pass, the Police Commissioner in Christchurch took elaborate precautions for the safe carriage of gold from the diggings to Christchurch. A bullet-proof wagon was constructed at much expense, barracks were built at Bealey and Barrack Creek, on either side of the range, and equipped with blocks and chains for prospective criminals, and squads of police were given some weeks special training in the art of catching bushrangers. Altogether more than £4,000 was spent.

The gold escort travelled only once, and then with about one ounce of gold. All the gold left Westland by boat.

The Vanished Bealey Township.

In the first excitement that followed the construction of the road over Arthur's Pass, a town of the mushroom variety sprang up on the flat in the fork between the Bealey and Waimakariri page 28 Rivers, and died just as quickly.

Von Haast, in “Geology of Canterbury and Westland,” says—“On 6th October, 1865, we reached the newly founded township of Bealey, situated in a large shingle fan which the tributary of the same name has advanced to a considerable distance into the bed of the river. Several houses had been built, either constructed of logs or covered with zinc or weatherboards which, together with a good array of tents, indicated that a number of people had already congregated there. In fact there were more than a hundred inhabitants who intended to settle in that locality, whilst a considerable number of diggers and navvies passing to and fro made it their usual resting place. At the same time several parties of surveyors were at work preparing timber for a number of buildings to be erected.” In June, 1865, Mr. Triphook surveyed the Town of Bealey, of 208 sections. Streets were named Albion, Caledonia, Erin, Cambria, running east and west; and running north and south were St. David, St. Patrick, St. Andrew and St. George.

Some of the sections were purchased, though the titles were not uplifted. Nor have they been uplifted since, so complete was the desertion of the township. When Von Haast revisited the site eighteen months later he found the place was “now almost deserted, everybody except the telegraphist and the sergeant of police having left.”

Nothing now remains to show where the township once existed except a few graves. The place now known as Bealey is on the other side of the Waimakariri, where the Bealey Hotel stands.

A Scene in the Southern Alps looking north-east from Mt. Oates, shewing (left) Mt. Franklin, (centre) Otehake Valley (and right) the Falling Mountain.

A scene from Mt. Rolleston, 7,453ft., shewing the peaks of Philistine and Alexander.

Mt. Cassidy.

This is one of the peaks on the east side of the Bealey which has been named after early identities of the district. It is a peak at the gable end of the spur from the Blimit, and overlooks Arthur's Pass. This is the peak which was for long called the Blimit.

In 1863 Mr. Cassidy took four horses over the Teramakau Saddle, and started a coach venture from Grey-mouth to Hokitika, using the beach for a road. This venture ended in disaster. The coach was washed out to sea near the mouth of the Teramakau, but Cassidy made other efforts until, in 1874, he secured the contract for carrying the Canterbury-West Coast mail. From then until 1923, when the tunnel was opened, the firm of Cassidy and a series of partners, drove coaches on the West Coast Road. Cassidy himself died in 1921.

The Devil's Punchbowl.

A spectacular waterfall, which is one of the chief glories of that place of glorious sights, was named the Devil's Punchbowl by Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, when he made his first traverse of the Bealey River at the time of discovering the pass. Mrs. Robert Wilson, writing in the “Land of the Tui” (1894), remarks that, “judging from the frequency of this designation in many countries, His Satanic Majesty is everywhere supposed to have an almost human predilection for this form of beverage.”

Deception River.

The river flows from Goat Pass to join the Otira. It once used to be called Goat Creek. About 1900, Mr. G. J. Roberts, Chief Surveyor at Hokitika, sent a party to reconnoitre this river and the pass at the head of it, to see if it would provide an alternative route for the railway. Mr. A. N. Harrop and Mr. M. Shaffrey went up the river, and Mr. Harrop was responsible for the simple little names borne by the tributary creeks—Slip Creek, Gorge Creek, etc.

The name Deception was first used when he returned from his expedition and warned the railway engineers who were building the line up the side of the Otira Valley to watch the water from this river, for it was very deceiving. They had no idea of the quantity that could come down it. Within three months the Deception water rose to such an extent that it crossed the Otira Valley and did several thousand pounds worth of damage to the railway. The name Deception appeared on the maps after that.

Kelly's Creek.

In the earliest days of the West Coast Road, a Mr. Kelly kept a store page 29 with a conditional license (the license was issued in 1865), at this creek, and the creek shared his name. When the coaches began to run, the store became the Otira Hotel and was a changing house for the coaches. It was always well known for its signboard, which read: “Otira Hotel kept by Kelly, where man and beast may fill their belly.” The hotel was burnt down about 1870, during the tenancy of a man named Joe Pike.

Kilmarnock Fall.

Falling into the White Valley from the cliffs of Mt. Davie is the water of the Kilmarnock Fall. The stream has sprung from a glaciated basin on the mountain, from which it makes a five hundred foot leap, an unbroken column of living white marble. In the winter and the spring there is always an accumulation of ice at its foot, brought down from the glacier basin above.

Mr. Jas. O'Malley, of the Bealey Glacier Hotel, who once used to take parties up the White River to see the glaciers, hid a bottle of brandy at the foot of the fall to meet cases of emergency. He referred to the fall thereupon as Kilmarnock after the brand of the liquor. This was about 1900. Many people have looked for the bottle since, for it is adding years and quality to its contents, but it is feared the secret of its hiding place was lost when Mr. O'Malley died in 1930.

Klondyke Hut.

This hut was built on the Bealey Flat, and the flat itself is now often called Klondyke. When the Bealey Hostel was shifted from the north side of the Waimakariri to the south the hut was built for the benefit of tramps and others who might be benighted on the north side or held up by bad weather in a flood. The hut was well equipped with blankets and utensils, but was not kept stocked with food. One man who reached it expecting to find a meal was so chagrined that he took some chalk and wrote the word “Starvation” across the hut. This was about the time of the Klondyke gold rush, when “Klondyke” was synonymous with “Starvation.” Hence a man who happened to be that way with a paint brush was inspired to paint the word “Klondyke” across the word “Starvation” in big letters. It was very obviously the Klondyke Hut.

A gruesome story is told of it concerning a dead Chinaman. He was drowned in the Bealey, and was put in the single bunk of the Klondyke Hut while the police went off to collect a jury for the inquest. It was a very stormy night, and a man who was, well, not quite drunk, decided to risk crossing the river, and so turned in beside the sleeping figure. In the morning he awoke late, and the sun was shining high; so he thought he would arouse his companion, too. He left the hut in a hurry!

Pegleg Creek.

This creek flows into the Otira from the eastern side, just below the summit of the Pass.

A certain Pegleg Charlie once had a hut there, and the story goes that he was supposed to be fossicking for gold, though in fact this was just a blind for his real occupation of slygrog selling to travellers over the Pass. He had a wooden leg; hence Pegleg.

Starvation.

Just above the top bridge in the Otira Gorge are two bluffs round which the road makes sharp turns. The upper of these bluffs is known as Starvation, for here the coaches used to stop to collect fares, and anyone who could not pay was left at this, the bleakest and windiest stop on the road. It is also known as Windy Point.

Waimakariri River.

“Canterbury's Big River,” and its tentacled tributaries, drain the whole of the National Park, on the Canterbury side. Its name was early learnt by Canterbury settlers, even if they were weak on its spelling. Mr.

(Photo, courtesy Auckland “Star.”)
All but one of these six children had never ridden in a train until recently, when they travelled to Auckland from Te Kuiti. They are pupils of a small isolated school in the King Country and none of them had ever seen the sea.

Johannes Andersen mentioned an astonishing version, “Wy McReedy.” Mr. J. Greenwood, of Motunau, was no better when he used, in his diary, “Wye McReedie.” “Waimakariddy” and “Waimakariti” approximate to the true pronunciation, and show how the Scots version was given a start.

In the general attack on Maori names in the early days, Courtenay could not overcome Waimakariri, just as Rakaia, fortunately, survived Cholomondeley. Waimakariri means “Cold Water.”

Mt. Wilson.

This peak stands on the Polar Range at the east boundary of the National Park. It is one of the group of peaks named by members of the Mountaineering Club after members of Captain Scott's Polar Expedition.

The peak is of remarkable shape, for which reason it can be recognised from almost any direction. Two perpendicular precipices flanking a level ridge gave it a sqaure appearance. This peak has the distinction of being the only one in the National Park that can be seen from the Canterbury Plains. From Halkett and other places in line with the depression through which the Waimakariri Gorge is cut, the peak is plainly visible, and can be identified by its peculiar shape.