Southland’s nooks, crannies and the occasional princess
Several southern place names record the fact that the discoverer thought he was in a pretty neat spot.
Paradise, Pleasure Bay, Cosy Nook, Arcadia and Portobello for example.
Paradise is generally supposed to be an abbreviation for Paradise Duck Flat but an article in the Lake Wakatip Mail in 1860 suggests that the area was named because of its beauty.
Wakatipu pioneer Alfred Duncan was smitten by a Maori maiden and when she asked the name of the pleasant spot he said: ‘‘Paradise, my little Maori princess, for every place must be that to me when you are by my side.’’
John T. Thomson added further names in the locality to support this theme in 1873, giving us The Garden of Eden, Erebus, Momus, Somnus, Nereus, Nox, Chaos, Amphion and Poseidon.
Pleasure Bay was the area since buried by the Invercargill rubbish dump. Before this environmental catastrophe it was a sandy beach upon which children frolicked and families picnicked and from where small boats were launched.
First jump
Southland’s first parachute jump was executed by Scotty Fraser who parachuted from 12,000 feet (3,900m) at Invercargill on December 1932.
In 1933 a newspaper report said that he had made ‘‘approximately 150 descents in New Zealand since he began, a large number of which have been between 1500 ft. and 2000 ft. He is of fairly short stature and weighs 9st. 10lb. On one occasion when he was giving exhibitions on the Riverton Beach, near Invercargill, he had a miraculous escape from death. Jumping from a plane piloted by Squadron-Leader McGregor, when at a height of 550 ft thinking the altitude was 850 ft, he was stated to be only 6 ft off the ground when the parachute opened. On that day Mr Fraser said he had the narrowest escape in his experience.’’
Alas, in 1936 Scotty Fraser was killed in a descent at Wellington when his parachute didn’t open.
Edison’s latest
The first demonstration of recorded sound in Southland was in December 1879. ‘‘A gentleman having just received one of Edison’s latest improved Phonograph instruments will exhibit the same in the Ladies’ Room of the Athenaeum on Wednesday evening Dec. 31st, from 7 to 10 o’clock. Admission — 6d. Proceeds to be given to the Hospital. Come All and See and Hear The Wonder of Wonders.’’
A year later it was still a novelty.
On December 22 1880 the Southland Institute held its first conversazione at the Athenaeum.
No fewer than four examples of new technology held the members of the institute spellbound.
‘‘The telephone, the phonograph, the spectroscope and the electric light, under one roof, were new, and secured, all of them, attention and admiration.’’