EARLY EVIDENCE

1874: Among several Campbell Island wreck reports of the 1800s, is the following from the December 1874 edition of Nature translated from the French, being part of an account by a French Expedition to Witness the Transit of Venus on Campbell Island that year [iii].

Where was this supposedly metaphorical middle of Campbell Island?  

"While exploring the island they found nearly in the middle of the island a vessel which a hurricane had thrown there, and they were thinking of utilising the wreck, either splitting it up or by placing themselves inside it, for protection against wind and weather.  But two or three days afterwards another hurricane blew the ship out to sea, and they saw it no more.  They were then obliged to do the best with all they had brought with them, for they were living in hourly dread of sharing the same fate as the wreck.”   

The geophysical centre of Campbell Island appears to me to be close to Col Peak on the central ridge whereas the site chosen as the latitudinal/longitudinal centre of the island by Ross in 1840 and De La Grye in 1874 was Shoal Point in Perseverance Harbour.  I believe that the French article referred to neither of these for several reasons; for a wreck to have been washed inland and then blown out to sea, the site would have had a gently sloping beach terrace exposed to inshore and offshore storm winds, and large seas.  These gradual slope/ocean exposure characteristics are at Capstan Cove in North West Bay and at a wreck-relic site at the head of Monument Harbour.  

After a storm in 1993, the writer saw a square slab of limestone about 400mm thick and as large as a dinner table storm-washed up onto the intertidal zone in Capstan Cove.  
Weather station staff saw large waves surging inland from Monument Harbour into Six Foot Lake during southerly storms (Mike Fraser, pers. comm).

1877: The following is from J. Thomson. Otago Daily Times, 28 June, 1877.  The whaling schooner Bencleugh arrived at Campbell Island on April 8, 1877.  

“All island explored, every place hunted, every bay visited by schooner.  Some part of ship’s topgallant rail and 2 or 3 spars and pieces of boats seen in Monument Harbour.  No known identity of ship or ships.”  

Unfortunately, the name Monument Harbour has, over time, been bestowed on two locations at Campbell Island: where was this one in 1877?

WHERE WAS MONUMENT HARBOUR IN 1877?

(See 1st image : My arrow imposed on 1810 chart published Geo Birnie, 1820.  Source: British Admiralty a31 Pacific folio 7)

The name ‘Monument Harbour' is applied here to what became known, probably in the mid- 1870s, as North West Bay wherein ‘Monument Harbour’ was transferred to the left-hand ‘Boat Harbour’ seen here in this map south of the ‘Lagoon three miles round’.   (See that Perseverance Harbour was named such in 1820, the year of the map’s publication, eight years before the Perseverance became wrecked at the island.)  A French map first drafted in 1873 has no Monument Harbour but Baie du Nord Ouest appears at North West Bay.  

We know that wreckage, old and new, were seen in North West Bay in the 1860s and 70s.  However, the French in 1874 and possibly Thompson’s 1877 article suggest another, unidentified place where wreckage was seen.  It’s possible that either or both articles referred to present day Monument Harbour.   

In 1912, another record shows that wreck timber may have been retrieved from Monument Harbour.

‘CEDAR' TIMBER FOUND IN 1912

Was the timber used in this picture frame retrieved from Monument Harbour? 

(See 2nd image : Picture frame by a Campbell Island whaler 1912.  Courtesy Mike Taylor, Picton Museum)

(See 3rd image : Close-up of picture frame by a Campbell Island whaler in 1912.  Courtesy Mike Taylor, Picton Museum)

Marlborough whalers were on Campbell Island from 1909 to 1916.  While based at their winter quarters in North West Bay, the men made curios and furniture from choice bits of wreckage, mainly oak and pine found ashore in the Bay.  In 1912, one of the whalers visited Monument Harbour and very likely recovered a piece of timber from the harbour as, eight days later, one of the men was making picture frames from what they understood was cidar’ (sic).  A picture frame hanging in the Picton Museum is labelled as having been made in 1912 from wreckage found on Campbell Island.  Scion (ex-Forest Research Institute) identifies the frame timber as possibly larch.  Scion could not determine the grain’s coarseness with precision because only a very small sliver was provided so as to preserve the frame’s integrity.  A larger sample would have allowed a better grain comparison with another Northern Hemisphere timber, spruce.  It may be spruce – commonly used for masts and spars.  That the picture frame hanging in the Picton Museum may be larch or spruce is significant.  My next blog (BLOG 3) describes the discovery of larch wreck relics in Monument Harbour in 1972.

BLOG 2 ENDS

[Norm Judd]

REFERENCES

[iii] Nature, December 17, 1874. Page 123

[iv] ROSS, Sir J.C. A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, John Murray, London, 1847.

[v] DE LA GRYE, B., “Recuil de Memoirs Venus sur le Soleil”, vol. III part I, Paris 1882.

[vi] Kerr: 1976. p 156

[vii] Whalers’ Campbell Island 1911- 12 Diary, Te Papa Pages 9, 13, 25,