Norfolks, stamps and wild dogs
Southland’s, and possibly the world’s, southernmost Norfolk pine is probably this example outside the Bluff Maritime Museum. Norfolk pines are native only to tiny Norfolk Island but are grown widely in warm climates. They are tolerant of coastal salt spray and the well spaced branches are an adaptation to resisting strong winds. They are, however, intolerant of frost and snow, and the microclimate in Bluff means that some plant species will survive there but not inland.
Southland’s appearances on postage stamps have been sparse. Mitre Peak has been depicted nine times, Stewart Island has shown up only six times, Dog Island lighthouse twice, Milford Sound several times. Other images include the Sutherland Falls, Gore Trout, Curio Bay, Mossburn stag, Colac Bay surfer and Riverton Paua. This is a total of only 31 images, although some have been used on more than one variety of stamp. Southland has been sorely neglected by NZ Post – not a one on Lake Te Anau or Manapouri, but plenty of Wakatipu and Wanaka.
Southland’s largest land predators were packs of wild dogs, descended from the Maori dog or kuri, which attacked stock in the Waimea Plains and in Eastern Southland in the 1850s and 1860s before they were eradicated by shooting, trapping and poisoning. They howled rather than barked. They are remembered in two localities called Kuriwao, meaning ‘‘forest of dogs’’.
Southland’s floating hostel was the MS Wanganella. From September 1963 to April 1970 she was in Deep Cove serving as accommodation for the workers on the Manapouri power project. She was built in Scotland in 1932 as the Achimota, but was renamed after the New South Wales township Wanganella. She served as a hospital ship in World War II and was scrapped in 1970.
Southland’s earliest Boys Brigade Company began in Winton in 1927 and Sergeant John McCall Thomson of the 1st Southland (Winton Company) received the King’s Badge in 1932, the first Southlander to do so.