Sealing & whaling (New Zealand)

General websites

There are some excellent places to look for information on the history of sealing and whaling in Aotearoa New Zealand.

NZ History

NZ History is a great website for information about New Zealand. If we go all the way down the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Look for the section Culture and Society on the home page.

• Under the heading Pre-1840 contact select Sealers and whalers.

• Look for the Images and media for related images and maps like a painting of the Jillett's Whaling Station, Kapiti Island.

Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address – they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government or educational organisations. They’re also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara is another useful website by the Ministry for Culture & Heritage that has Aotearoa history topics.

• Use the search bar at the top of the page to search for the keywords 'sealing' or 'whaling'.

• Both the stories Sealing and Whaling start with a summary page that gives an outline of the other pages in the story.

• You can use the contents or select next to move through the pages of the story to read more eg about Māori and whaling on page 4 of the Whaling story.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. You can leave out small words like ‘the’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, eg Whaling. We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand

This part of the National Library of New Zealand's website has images and stories from Aotearoa New Zealand's histories.

• Look down the page and select Whaling in the bay.

• You can select the image of the Māori whaler from Whangamumu station to make it bigger.

• Read the story about whaling and find more resources to explore at the bottom of the page.

Tips: Primary sources like the image in this Te Kupenga story are useful for gathering information about people’s values and attitudes about a topic from that time.

Department of Conservation (DOC)

The Department of Conservation (DOC) is the government website about preserving the natural and historical places of New Zealand. You can see it’s a government site by looking at the About us or Contact links at the top of the page.

• Search for 'sealing' or 'whaling'.

• Go to Whaling: New Zealand marine mammals to find out about the history of Whaling and what it's like today.

• Choose Sealing and whaling for information on the history and places where sealing and whaling happened in New Zealand.

• You can then search for those sites to find more information.

DigitalNZ

DigitalNZ searches online resources from New Zealand libraries, museums, universities and government sites in one place. It groups results by the type of information and has lots of primary sources.

• Use keywords like 'sealers', 'whaling' or 'whaling station' to search the site for images, newspapers, videos and more on these topics.

• You can filter the results by date and by type of information.

• We found this picture of The trying-down pots: a busy scene at Te Kaha Whaling Station.

Tips: You can use names of people, groups, places and events as keywords for your searches eg Whangamumu whaling station.

The Aotearoa History Show

The Aotearoa History Show is a video series made by Radio New Zealand (RNZ). It tells the story of Aotearoa New Zealand from when the land was formed to today.

• Look down the video list to find the episode Season 2 Ep 9: Sealing and whaling.

• You can look under the video for what they talk about in the episode.

Books

Check your school or public library to find books about whaling and sealing in Aotearoa New Zealand. Here are some titles to begin with:

• First encounters : New Zealand 1642-1840 by Gordon Ell and Sarah Ell

• The New Zealand sealing industry : history, archaeology, and heritage management by Ian W G Smith

• There she blows : sealing & whaling days in New Zealand by Sarah Ell

• Whalers and sealers by Kevin Boon.

SCIS no: 5495936