A Swedish touch in the south

Southland’s acquaintance with Sweden began in 1770 with the visit by Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander aboard Cook’s Endeavour.

Joseph Banks had appointed Solander as his principal scientific assistant on the expedition.

He collected and studied the flora of New Zealand and Australia, and later made several other journeys, among other places to Iceland, and died in 1782 at the age of 49.

There is a monument in Swedish granite to Solander in Sydney.

The two islands in the group, Big Solander/Hautere and Little Solander/Te Pou o Hautere, stand at the western end of Foveaux Strait and the seas around the islands were a famed whaling ground and there were several shipwrecks on the island, and castaways for some years.

In 1895 there was an application for grazing rights on the islands. Clearly, the applicant was unacquainted with the geography unless he was intending to set up an ibex farm.

The islands are part of Fiordland National Park and thousands of seabirds nest there including gannets and Bullers mollymawks.

Wet Jacket Arm

The unusual name ‘‘Wet Jacket Arm’’ in Fiordland comes from an incident in 1773 when the crew of the Resolution explored the area between Dusky and Breaksea Sounds.

In good spirits and clear weather, a party of men rowed the length of the newly discovered inlet 20km to its headwaters where they camped for the night.

The following day there was a ferocious change in the weather and after rowing back along the arm they landed, hungry and drenched at the entrance.

They spent a miserable night in their sodden clothes, unable to light a fire to dry themselves or cook food, and kept awake by crashing thunder, lightning, huge waves and falling trees.

Fortunately, their boat was undamaged and the new dawn brought sunshine and calmer seas as they rowed back to the Resolution for a long-overdue hot meal.

Cook named the inlet Wet Jacket Arm to immortalise the incident. The arm is now the 2000 hectare Wet Jacket Arm/Moana Uta Marine Reserve, established in 2005.

The two islands in the group, Big Solande/Hautere (pictured) and Little Solander/Te Pou o Hautere, stand at the western end of Foveaux Strait.

Southland novel

The most popular book on Southland is probably Where No Roads Go, one of at least 40 novels set wholly or partly in Southland.

It is an Essie Summers novel first published by Mills and Boon in 1963.

‘‘Prudence found her voice first. On such a day as this,’’ she said, ‘‘the Queen saw Milford Sound. They brought her around by sea, she had embarked at Bluff, past Invercargill. The Gothic lay just out there – it’s terrifically deep.

‘‘It could have been shrouded in mist. They call this Queen’s weather now, I believe.’’

‘‘Prudence looked back at their last link with civilisation as they steamed up the Sound, saw the unbelievable force of the Bowen Falls, glanced up at Hugo as he stood by the rails and said ‘Have you had your appendix out, Hugo?’ ‘‘