What's your story?
One of the goals of Te Ara is to find ways of involving the community. So for the first theme, New Zealanders, we invited people to send in stories about their voyage to New Zealand, or about an ancestor’s voyage.
We were staggered by the response.
Over 250 contributions poured in, often with photographs. Many were about the perils of the 19th-century journey out in small sailing ships. There were sad tales of babies lost, of drunken doctors, of the smell of pigs and the taste of stale water.
We also received many happier descriptions from ‘Captain Cookers’ – British immigrants of the 1950s who were crammed into six-berth cabins on the Captain Cook, where they were fed propaganda about the wonders of New Zealand.
We have selected 27 of these stories, most of which are presented in The voyage out.
Additional stories appear in History of immigration and Indians.
All those who sent in stories are listed on the Ministry for Culture and Heritage website.
For Earth, Sea and Sky, we asked for beachcombing stories, and have received an excellent collection of interesting tales. We have also included accounts of peoples’ experiences after disaster struck.
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