Photo of the Week: Marines Hut – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Coming home

Loading the hut at MenzShed (Photo by Larry Keim)

This year is the 75th anniversary of the arrival of American Marines in New Zealand. Over 15,000 lived in three camps in the Paekakariki area and one of the huts they lived in has been restored by the Waikanae MenzShed. On Thursday of last week this hut was moved to the US Marines Memorial in Queen Elizabeth Park.

It will be officially “opened” at the US Memorial Day Service on Monday 29 May. The service starts at 10.00am and members of the public are very welcome.

The other key event in this year’s celebrations is on Sunday 28 May: the In the Footsteps of the Marines event. This 13.2km run or walk follows an old Marines route march and starts at Whareroa Farm. It costs $25 to enter and this can be done at enteronline. Proceeds will be going to local organisations and charities.

A tight fit through the Park gates at Mackays Crossing!

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.