History

Māori were the first to discover this wonderful region and they valued it for the taonga (treasure) of greenstone (pounamu), which was found there in abundance. In 1860 gold fever brought Europeans, many of whom stayed on to start farming, forestry and businesses. The West Coast was only occasionally visited by early Europeans until the discovery of gold near the Taramakau River in 1864 by two Māori, Ihaia Tainui and Haimona Taukau. By the end of that year there were an estimated 1800 prospectors on the West Coast, many of them around the Hokitika area, which, in 1866, became briefly the most populous settlement in New Zealand.

A major gold rush took place between 1864 and 1867, creating numerous gold rush towns such as Okarito which became at one point the largest town on the West Coast but then quickly almost vanished as miners moved on. After that time, the population of the West Coast dwindled, but the main towns that still exist on the Coast had become established. After pounamu (greenstone or jade) and gold, the next mineral to make the West Coast valuable was coal. Coal was discovered near the Buller River in the mid-1840s and mining began in earnest during the 1860s. By the 1880s, coal had become the region’s main industry, with mines throughout the northern half of the region, especially around Westport. Many of these continued in operation until the mid-20th century and several survive today. Timber has also long been a major industry in the region, although in recent years there has been an uneasy balance between milling and conservation.

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