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Shooting up the Mokau River
Robert Wells once taught in a sole charge school 26 kilometres up the Mokau River. He rowed pupils to school in a leaky old boat and shot wild pigs and photos in his spare time. Robert was a river man for five years. He wrote Mokau River Memories 1927-32.
Today thousands of Robert's photos are saved in the Alexander Turnbull Library. This is the research library within the National Library of New Zealand.
The Robert Wells' story is well worth a read.
Rewind
Rewind to the Mokau years of Robert Wells - 1927-32. Were these things really happening? You decide
True or false?
1. Radio has arrived in New Zealand.
2. Thousands of men are unemployed and relying on government work schemes for a small amount of money.
3. Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first flight across the Tasman Sea.
4. The coins New Zealanders use now have New Zealand images on them.
5. All the MPs in parliament are men.
Answers at the bottom of the page.
The camera and the deeds
Look here to see one type of camera Robert Wells used in Mokau. It's the old fashioned Thornton Pickard.
Click here to see examples of the Quarter Plate Reflex camera. Scroll through until you find some. Robert also used a camera like these.
Imagine shooting the wild pig photo above with one of those old cameras. What if you took a similar photo with a digital camera today? List some differences for the photographer before, during and after the shot.
Look here to see just how famous Robert's photos have become.
Picture the time
Photographers like Robert Wells show us how things were. They didn't photograph the huge events and well known people but through them we see the every day happenings and every day people from an earlier time.
Find this week's story and pick two of the photos that you think show this the best. Compare your choices with a classmate's and then look here to see a selection of Robert's photos. Read the introduction first. It tells you more about the photographer.
Word watch
All the words and phrases below are in this week's story. Choose the best meaning and check your answers as you read the story.
1. soberly (a) carelessly or (b) thoughtfully
2. accessible (a) seen or (b) reachable
3. composed (a) to arrange artistically or (b) to stay calm
4. perfectionist (a) a fussy person or (b) someone who is only pleased when his or her work is of an extremely high standard.
5. the epicenter of the earthquake (a) the point of the earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake (a) the place where the earthquake begins
6. wee delicacies (a) tiny bits of food that are a real treat or (b) delicate and easily broken
7. a fluke (a)highly skilled or (b) just good luck
8. bounty (a) a reward offered by the government or (b) stolen loot that is later recovered
9. proverbial (a) well known because it's mentioned in a proverb or (b)quite rare
10. betrayal (a) extreme anger or (b) let down because of dishonesty
Answers at the bottom of the page.
Pig hunt!
Read the first part of this week's story and find out why photography and pig hunting became a dangerous mix.
Look how the writer gets the reader straight into the story with a few carefully chosen words. We read the first sentence and might even think it's the mother of a student upset with the teacher! Write a first sentence of your own that could also make a great start to this story.
The story teller
Read "Still telling stories," and work out how old Robert Wells was when this Taranaki story was published in 2004.
Imagine the changes that Robert has seen in his lifetime. List five things you use at school now that would not have been in the schools Robert first taught in.
Work out what Robert or his pupils would have used instead.
Compare your list with a classmate's and then decide just how much better off you are now with the new technology. Rate each thing on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 = not that much impact while a 5 = a huge impact.
Good things take time
Robert describes his Thornton Pickard camera as a "Rolls Royce of cameras". You sometimes see cameras like these in movies set in the olden days. The photographer ducks under a large black cloth that also covers the camera. Look here to find the reason for the big black cloth. This site also shows you how to make a pinhole camera. They're quite good fun.
Read "Taking time to focus" and see how Robert brought life to his photos.
Return here again and find the one photo that best shows the depth or 3D effect.
Leaky school bus!
Read "Rowing to school" and "Playground paddock" for a clear picture of Mangatoi School in 1927. See if the principal had to worry about traffic at the school gate before and after school. Most principals worry about that now.
Think about this school and then try this activity with a classmate.
Mangatoi School was pretty basic but list some of the good things that these kids may have done that probably can't be done at school today.
Earthquake!
Now read about the earthquake that was felt at Mangatoi School in 1931. It's in "When the earth moved."
Look here for a summary of that day in the Hawke's Bay and some photos. To find the photos look under images.
For some short earthquake survivor stories, look here.
Whitebait overload
Strange things happened when spring tides came to the Mokau. Read "Ruled by water" and "Flowing with fritter creatures." This was a time when whitebaiters could catch more whitebait than they could possibly eat.
Scientists now think they know why whitebait swim up some rivers and leave other rivers alone. It's all in this story from the New Zealand Herald. See if you can find out why.
Today whitebait cost a lot more than one shilling per pound. One shilling is worth
10 cents. These days Graham Putt the Mokau butcher sells whitebait for $95 a kilogram. A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds so in the 1920s Robert would have made just over 20 cents for a kilogram of whitebait.
In Auckland recently whitebait have been selling for $140 a kilogram. Work out how much Robert would make today if he sold his 12 gallons of whitebait for $140 a kilogram. You might be surprised.
Each imperial gallon weighs about 10 pounds and remember there are 2.2 pounds in a kilogram. Use your calculator.
Holiday flood
This cartoon shows the cream boat. There's a photo of it in the story. Read "High waters force time out" to find out why the girl in the cartoon looks a bit worried. Write two speech bubbles to match the cartoon's two characters and then compare your speech bubbles with others in your class.
Perfect for a movie
"Shooting from the hip" sounds like the scene from a movie. Read on!
What if Robert's Mokau days became a movie? The cartoon on the left would make a great graphic for the movie's poster. Check out the poster below and sketch one up for a Mokau movie. You'll need to think of an eye catching title. Click here for a larger version to print out.
Pig snout bounty
"Piggy bank goes belly up" tells the tale of a bounty put on wild pigs. Wild pigs were a pest for farmers. They cut up paddocks and could attack lambs. The snout bounty was a government attempt to cull the pigs. Read this part of the story and find out if Robert made any money from this bounty.
Perhaps a bounty could help cull New Zealand's 90 million possums. It might create jobs. A whole army of possum hunters might wipe out this pest. Taranaki possum campaigners have been asking for a managed possum bounty scheme for years. They think it is a great idea because if you don't produce a dead possum, you don't get paid.
Try this activity in pairs or in a group of four. The problem is:
How do we reduce the number of possums in New Zealand?
List two possible solutions and for each solution list two possible outcomes or consequences.
Share your ideas in class and then look here to see what DOC thinks of the possum bounty idea.
Speeding on the Mokau
Robert Wells was a power boat man. Read "Drive by shooting" and "Red Slipper a perfect fit"
Choose the:
- Safest power boat Robert owned.
- The powerboat he probably had the most fun with.
- The most practical power boat he owned.
- The most interesting power boat for a Puke Ariki exhibition today.
Compare your choices with a classmate's.
What a villain!
Finish the story now and find out what happened to many of Robert's river photos.
What if you were a private detective with the job of getting these photos back? Team up with a classmate and jot down some plans for recovering these photos after all those years. They might just be sitting in a cupboard in a home somewhere in New Zealand. Work out how you could track them down.
Fast forward
Photos provide information and teach us about people and places. They capture people's moods, actions and surroundings and tell us about things happening around us. That's why Robert Well's photos are so precious. They tell us all these things from a time that has now gone.
The story tells us that much of what Robert was able to see and live through up the Mokau River has disappeared. There is hardly any evidence left to show it was there.
Look here for some present day Taranaki photos. They were shot by photographers at the Taranaki Daily News.
Pick two photos that you think best show a slice of life in 2004. Look closely at each photo and answer the following:
- What is the subject of the photo?
- What is the purpose of the shot?
- Is there contrast? What is it (e.g. near and far, tone and shape?)
- Is it a candid or posed shot?
- What does the photo tell you? (Think about the less obvious like feelings and moods.)
Answers
Rewind
1. True. New Zealand's first radio station began broadcasting in Dunedin in 1921 and the Radio Broadcasting Company had begun broadcasts throughout New Zealand by 1926.
2. True. The Great Depression began to take hold in 1929 and uneplyment skyrocketed in the early 1930s.
3. True
4. False. The first coins with New Zealand images were issued in 1933.
5. True. The first woman was elected in 1933. She was Elizabeth McCombs.
Click to go back to the questions.
Word Watch
1a, 2b, 3a, 4b, 5a, 6a, 7b, 8a, 9a, 10b.
Click to go back to the questions.
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