KAURI MUSEUM - Key Persons
A. H. Reed was a New Zealand publisher, author and entrepreneur, who migrated from England in 1887. The foundations of The Kauri Museum greatly benefited from Reed's kauri gum digging experience, great expeditions and work as an author.
The Kauri Museum has two charging points outside the main building. These are J-1772 and Type 2 plugs. For more details visit this link.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the BOARD
- Museum Board Chairman
Board Chairman Grant McCallum reports that the projects funded by Kanoa (the Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit) are on time and progressing well. "It's been a challenge, like all the building industry, with shortages of materials, and the industry being flat out, and delivery issues" he says. "The Forest Walkway will emulate that early Gondwana Land experience. Visitors will enter the Museum through a walkway representing the ancient kauri forests which will make it a lot easier for us to explain what the reality of those forests was like, then we want to introduce them to the story of the first human interaction with those forests and the way Maori lived in the Kaipara."
Other renovation projects are changing the visitor experience at the Museum. Renovations at the Gumdiggers Café are the most obvious project for many visitors. "We had to do a lot of foundation work to strengthen the deck area of the café. That work has now been completed, along with the painting and new flooring in the main area of the café. We have now received final consents from the KDC, so can get on to installing the toilets. That's a major step, as the café did not have them before" says Grant. The roof of Gumdiggers is also to be replaced, which will involve closing the building. From Monday August 1 until reopening on Saturday August 27 the café will be operating from the Matakohe Hall.
Museum Board chairman Grant McCallum says the Board is delighted with the appointment. "Barbara brings considerable international and museology experience to the role and the Board was impressed with her vision for the future of museums and her focus on working with all our communities to tell our stories as we chart a new path in a post Covid world."
Kauri gum is a resin which bleeds from the kauri tree where bark is damaged or a branch broken - the resin bleeds to seal the wound, preventing rot or water getting into the tree. Gum can build up into a hard lump. As the tree grows and bark is shed, gum is forced off to fall to the ground, a process that has been happening for millions of years. Many years ago, there were vast quantities of gum in the ground. New Zealand's fossil kauri gum, found in coal, has been dated as 43 million years old. More recent gum from 10,000 to 30,000 years old is known as kauri copal (or resinite). This gum is our version of juvenile amber.
Kauri gum, as with the timber was an important export for New Zealand being sent overseas by the ton. It was collected from the ground by picking up the exposed pieces where the forests had once grown. As the easily found gum disappeared, the gum diggers probed in the ground with spears to locate the gum nuggets, then dug it up with spades.
Trees were also a source of gum - collectors would chip pieces of old hard gum from the branches and top (or head) of trees where it had collected for many years. Attempts were also made extract further gum by cutting the trees to bleed fresh gum, collecting it later after it developed into a hard lump.
Gum was used by Māori for cooking fires and lighting because it burns very easily. It was also had many other uses including medical remedies, for chewing gum, and the soot of burnt gum made a pigment for tattooing.
Job Titles:
- Member of the BOARD
- Trustee