Kauri Gum-Diggers

Over millennia extensive kauri forests have come and gone on the North Shore, leaving behind the valuable commercial resource of kauri gum at varying depths. Top-quality gum was exported and used to manufacture slow-drying varnishes with hard finishes, while low-quality product was turned into linoleum.

Maori used the flammable resin as fuel and flaming torches, chewed softened gum, and used the soot from burnt gum in tattooing.  

 

From the late nineteenth century commercial individual gum diggers were allowed to dig on unsold government land. They established a series of transitory and semi-permanent camps particularly at O'Neils Point, Belmont, Narrow Neck, Northcote, Birkenhead, and Devonport - as well as the gullies from Castor Bay through to Campbells Bay and Okura and as far west as Albany. 

 

 The land for miles around became extensively pock-marked with holes of various sizes and depths, and after rain turned into morasses of deep, sticky clay. This rendered the land useless for agriculture, later requiring remediation by heavy machinery and the application of tons of fertilizers. When pioneering families cleared their blocks and begin to plough they also collected kauri gum from the soil - sales of which supplemented their income. On Saturdays diggers brought their finds to gum-buyers and store-owners who established trading premises amongst the gum fields.Some of the diggers were run-away sailors who had tired of the harsh discipline and arduous working conditions on sailing ships. Many others were Maori or Dalmation, with British, Fijian and many other nationalities adding to the polyglot mix.