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History of the Lakes District

The first people to this area were Maori inland explorers. Waitaha, were present in the Lakes District as early as 850AD, followed by the Kati Mamoe and Kai Tahu. From the 1850s a number of European explorers made their way to the Wakatipu district but never settled here. In 1860 William Rees, a Welshman, established a station (high country farm), with the headquarters called simply 'the camp' at the site where Queenstown is today. Fellow explorer, Nicholas von Tunzelman , a Prussian, took the land on the far side of Lake Wakatipu. Things may have continued along the path of a thriving pastoral community but the Rees' farming lifestyle was to be short lived, for in the not too distant future the discovery of gold changed the course of history for the area.

In 1862 William Rees' shearer Jack Tewa discovered gold in the Arrow River. The discovery remained quiet for a short time but gradually miners making their way inland from the many gold fields in Central Otago began to arrive. Among them was a Californian gold miner called William Fox. A larger than life character, William Fox worked with a group of around 40 miners appointing himself as something of a rough commissioner. Once word got out the population of Fox's,as Arrowtown was then called, rose within a few short weeks to around 1500. Eventually Arrowtown's population rose to over 7000.

Shortly after the Arrow discovery, two further men employed by farmer William Rees, Thomas Arthur and Harry Redfern, struck it rich on the Shotover River, uncovering more than £400 worth of gold in less than two months quickly winning the river a reputation as one of the richest rivers in the world. The population at the Shotover was estimated to swell to as high as 5000 miners within a few weeks. Later, as the miners made their way into the interior in search of the elusive Mother Lode, the townships of Macetown and Bullendale were established. Now ghost towns, these communities established themselves around quartz mining - the source of the gold, adding to the wider population.

Life was never easy for the miner whose diet usually consisted of damper, bacon, mutton and tea which resulted in scurvy and dysentery. Long hours working in the icy Arrow River also led to rheumatism and in many cases an early death. Spring floods also took their toll and on one particular occasion in 1863 an estimated 100-200 miners lost their lives in both the Arrow and Shotover rivers. There was also a chronic lack of wood in the region with no timber for many miles. This created problems for building, many turning to the local stone, mica schist as an alternative material. The scarcity of wood also caused a serious shortage of fuel for fires, often making for a miserable life in the Central Otago winters.