Okitiki Terra Incognita Hokitika / Westland

This book is a compilation of copyright free newspaper items carefully chosen from the "Papers Past" website of the National Library of New Zealand.

This provides an opportunity to access a selected small, important and often bypassed selection of history written and first published with firsthand knowledge in what we might now refer to as real time. Out of respect for the long dead authors their work is presented, each in its entirety, with only the addition of a minimal amount of necessary explanatory comment. Interpretation has been avoided.

Let the original writer transport you to the time of the opening up of their new world, the challenge and adventure of pioneering and exploration. Consider and appreciate the difficulties and rewards encountered and achieved in the age where telegraph was new, steam was still struggling to surpass sail for long distance transport and when looking out for one and another was required because self reliance was not sufficient.

This compilation is more than copying and pasting. New Zealand newspapers of 1863 through to 1865 have been searched to find the relevant material that, tells of the beginning of colonial development in Westland, as and when it was happening. It presents, without embellishment or bias, real circumstances and stories of our pioneers as they meant them to be known.

This book is a sample of the wealth of the material made so easily accessible on the Papers Past website, check it out, what you find will not disappoint.

Papers Past "Copyright guide":

"The Papers Past website provides access to digitised copies of historical New Zealand newspapers. This copyright statement relates specifically to the digitised newspaper content on Papers Past. Additional information about specific papers can be found on each newspaper title page."

"Material on this website has been provided in good faith for users by the National Library on the basis that:
•the newspaper publications provided from the 19th and early 20th century are out of copyright
•in most cases digitised copies replace microfilm versions previously provided to the public
•for more recent newspaper publications (up to 1945), permission has been sought from the publisher to reproduce the material on this website"