Mount Tarawera is a volcano found on the North Island of New Zealand. It is located in the volcanically active Okataina caldera.
It is a series of lava domes that today lie in ruins, huge fissures gaping down the slopes. This was due to a singular and catastrophic event: a huge eruption in 1886. It was one of New Zealand’s largest eruptions and killed around 150 people.
The fissures run from Northeast-Southwest for around 17 kilometers (11 miles). The main component domes include the named domes of Ruawahia, Tarawera, and Wahanga.
There are several lakes including Tarawera that were all drastically changed, along with the entire landscape, by the eruption in 1886. The Tarawera River runs northeast around the Northern flank of the mountain. There have been many eruptions of this restless giant but none so devastating as 1886.
And, if local legend is to be believed, the spirits of the dead may have tried to warn people.
A History of Volcanic Eruptions
Tarawera and her sister volcanoes had been erupting for thousands of years, albeit with long periods where the violent peak slumbered. One of the first eruptions from this region was the eruption of Okareka, dated to around 21,900 years ago.
It has been suspected that it created an cloud of ash and debris as big as 12 cubic kilometers (3 cubic miles) carpeting the landscape as far as the eye could see. It is thought that it generated clouds for days to weeks.
Five thousand years later came the Rerewhakaaitu eruption, with the most recent estimates dating it to around 17,700 years ago during the last glacial termination. It was just over half the size of the Okareka eruption. It created multiple domes that can still be seen today. The lava spewing from the volcano is estimated to have been as much as 2 cubic kilometers (0.5 cubic miles).
After another 4,000 years came the Waiohau eruption around 13,800 years ago and with roughly the same amount of lava as Rerewhakaaitu. Again the volcano left a mark on the landscape, creating the Kanakana and Eastern domes.
By this point however the mountain range had become too weak from the damage caused by the multiple eruptions. There is evidence of a structural collapse of the mountains surrounding these volcanoes, although some of what these eruptions caused is lost because of what was to come.
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Finally, there was the Kaharoa eruption. This eruption has been dated to around 1314 BC, just a few years before any Maori people would have settled there in 1280 BC. There were multiple stages to this eruption with perhaps as many as 11 different phases to it.
This eruption was huge, the largest that is known about to date, spewing as much as 15 cubic kilometers of debris. It is perhaps the largest eruption to have happened in the New Zealand area.
These eruptions were spectacular and would have caused huge damage, but all seem to have been when there were no people settled in the area. This was until the 1886 eruption.
1886
In 1886, Lake Tarawera was abuzz with tourist activity from around the world. Tourists would come from all across the globe to spend time at the beautiful shores and to experience the geothermic wonders of the Pink and White Terraces.
The area was very rich in volcanic and geothermal beauty and dotted with the volcanic cones created from previous eruptions. The geothermal and volcanic landscape played a significant part in the story of this eruption. There was a record of many portents and omens revealing the tragedy that would unveil. One of these was the phantom canoe story.
The story often begins with a shadow on Mount Tarawera displaying a burnt peak. The mountain cast a shadow on the sun. An ominous sign perhaps, and to the trained eye of a modern vulcanologist a clear sign of danger, but despite this, eyewitnesses would later say that the tourists still flocked to the area in their droves.
The next sign was perhaps less scientific. Many claimed that they saw a phantom craft out on the lake with a double row of passengers. One row was paddling whilst the others were standing over them in flax robes with their heads bowed.
Eyewitnesses claim that their hair was plumed (a Maori custom when there has been a death) and had been decorated with the huia and white heron feathers. Maori tradition dictates that these were the souls of those who had passed being transferred to the mountain of the dead.
However, those who were on the lake and approached found that there was no canoe on the lake at all. It would seen like a flight of fancy, expect for the descriptions provided by people who would never have seen a boat like it before.
This story would have stayed legend but for the sheer amount of people that claimed to have seen the ghostly canoe, a tale that has persisted to today. A woman named “Mrs. Sise”, a tourist aboard another boat on the lake claimed in a letter to her son that all the native Maori people on the boat and those who lived in the area permanently had never seen such a boat, and there was definitely not meant to be one on the lake on that day.
Many of the eyewitness accounts corroborate the boat and many of them are not superstitious, or so they claim. What followed next would lead people to believe that this was an omen.
The first sign that something was not right was that the water in the lake began to rise quickly, before disappearing away even more rapidly. Next, a white steam cloud above the volcanic peak was seen and many of the guides believed that this was not a good sign.
This coupled with the phantom canoe led people to great panic. Fortunately, nothing happened on the day. The disaster would not strike for another 11 days. But then Tarawera erupted.
On the night of the eruption, the mountain sent forth fire fountains that shot up into the sky and rained ash down on nearby settlements. Three villages suffered complete obliteration and approximately 150 people lost their life.
The eruption was preceded by more than 30 earthquakes, increasing in intensity before the mountain herself finally erupted at 2:45 am. The largest explosion came at 3:30 am, destroying villages within a 6-kilometer (4 mile) radius, along with the Pink and White Terraces. These terraces were famous New Zealand natural landmarks but were obliterated by the explosion.
Fortunately, after nearly 125 years after the eruption, a small portion of the Pink terraces have been rediscovered under Lake Rotomahana. They had been known about in 1859 when Ferdinand Von Hochstetter discovered them, but this research had been lost and only was translated between 2016 and 2019.
This research has revealed that the lake is home to Pink, Black, and White terraces across the lake shores meaning that not everything was destroyed by this tragic eruption.
Many skeptics claim that the phantom canoe was just a freak reflection of the mist on the lake but to those who saw it and the local Maori, it will always be known as the Waka Wairua, the spirit canoe that warned those who saw it of the eruption, if only they had the wit to understand.
Top Image: The White Terraces of Lake Rotomahana, lost in the Lake Tarawera eruption of 1886. Did a phantom canoe warn tourists of the disaster? Source: Unknown Author / Public Domain.
By Kurt Readman
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