Story: Poles
The first people with a connection to Poland known to have reached New Zealand were two scientists who came with Captain James Cook on his second voyage in 1772. They were Polish-born Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg, and they both published accounts of the voyage. Georg’s engraving of the ‘poe-bird’, published in Cook’s own account, A voyage towards the South Pole, is one of the earliest European depictions of a tūī.
About this item
Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: C-051-028
Engraving by Johann Georg Forster
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.