TEICHELMANN, Ebenezer

TEICHELMANN, Ebenezer

 Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 149, 21 December 1938, Page 14

 

                                       Noted Mountaineer

Dr. E. Teichelmann
Death At Hokitika 

New Zealand has lost one of her noted mountaineers through the death of Dr. Ebenezer Teichelmann, F.R.C.S., M.R.C.S. (Eng.), L.R.C.P. (Ireland). Associate of Mason's Science College (Birmingham). He died at Hokitika yesterday.

Dr. Teichelmann was surgeon superintendent of the Westland Hospital for about twenty years, but retired eighteen years ago. He was widely known in New Zealand because of his mountaineering work and was in Wellington for the last annual dinner of the New Zealand Alpine Club.


Dr. Teichelmann was born in South Australia in 1859. He was educated at Hahndorf College, at Adelaide University, and at Queen's and Mason's Colleges, Birmingham, England. He also studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and at hospitals in Dublin. Ireland. For a time he acted as demonstrator of physiology at Mason's College, was assistant physician and resident pathologist at the General Hospital, Birmingham, assistant surgeon at the Jaffray Suburban Hospital, resident medical officer of the Birmingham Workhouse, and later spent two years in private practice in England. Upon returning to Australia he was health' officer at Port Adelaide for two years. He came to New Zealand in 1897 to accept the position of superintendent of the Westland Hospital.

At the outbreak of war in 1914 Dr. Teichelmann, although he had difficulty in obtaining a position with the Forces because of his German ancestry on his father's side, secured a commission in the New Zealand Medical Corps with the rank of captain. He served overseas from 1914 until 1917, and was one of the survivors of the troopship Marquette which was torpedoed in the Aegean Sea.  

Exploring and Climbing.

Many contributions to mountaineering in New Zealand were made by Dr. Teichelmann. He first became interested in climbing through engaging in prospecting for gold up the Kellery River, but as soon as he v commenced mountaineering he followed what was to be his lifelong hobby with enthusiasm. Although he was a small, spare man, he proved a capable climber and was nominated and elected a member of the Alpine Club (London) in 1903.

He came into prominence through carrying out some noted exploration work in the headwaters of the Wanganui, where he climbed a number of peaks. He also did a good deal of exploring at the head of the Cook River, but the pioneering work had been done there before his time. From the time he was elected to the Alpine Club until he went overseas with the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces he made many ascents, several being first ascents, and a monument to the part he played in New Zealand mountaineering will always remain in Mount Teichelmann (10,370 ft) in the Southern Alps, which was named after him.

Dr. Teichelmann was the first to climb some of the peaks at the head of the Cook River from the westward. and he was the first to cross the Harper Saddle from the west, making the crossing some years after Mr. A. P. Harper, Karori, Wellington, had given the saddle its name.

Dr. Teichelmann also crossed Baker's Saddle from the Hooker Glacier to the Copeland River, and made the' first crossing (in 1904) of Pioneer Pass from the Fox Glacier to the Tasman Glacier. Others of his notable climbing feats included the ascents of Mount Cook, Douglas Peak, Mount Spencer. Mount Green, and La Perouse Call 10,000 ft or over). His principal climbing companions were the Rev. H E. Newton (A.C.) and Mr. Alex Graham (guide).

Dr. Teichelmann was a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club for many years, and was a valued member of the executive. He was president of the club in 1936 and 1937.
 

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 149, 21 December 1938, Page 14

 

I was so happy to discovery this obituary today  so long after writing his biography.  Here is a to my web site on Dr. Ebenezer Teichelmann.

A typical Teichelmann photograph taken from the Fritz Range looking over the Franz Josef Glacier and the main divide with Mt. Elie de Beaumont to the left and The Minerets and de la Beche to the right. What light, composition and texture. Bob McKerrow collection. Christchurch.

First Crossing - Ebenezer Teichelmann. TV ONE.

At last, one of Ebenezer Teichelmann's great feats of exploration and mountaineering has been acknowledged on NZ TV. I spent 13 years researching and writing the definitive biography on Ebenezer Teichelmann which was published in 2005. Tonight this was the script on TV One's billboard.
Tuesday 6 Aug
First Crossings 8:30pm - 9:30pm (G) Factual TV ONE
Kevin and Jamie take on the fearsome Cook River Gorge as they retrace the footsteps of pioneer photographer Ebenezer Teichelmann in 1905.
It was an excellent production of one of many of Teichelmann's remarkable journeys during which he did 26 first ascents. What I liked in tonight's production was what I highlighted in my biography on Teichelmann; the love between he and Mary, his role as a pioneer conservationist, his outstanding photography, his coaching of future mountain guides, and the strategic manner in which he promoted tourism. I still have many copies of my book on Teichelmann available and from Paper Plus in Hokitika. Here is the link: http://www.westcoastbooks.co.nz/proddetail.asp?prod=B3877

I also have a blog on this amazing human being: http://ebenezerteichelmann.blogspot.co.nz/

A typical Teichelmann photograph taken from the Fritz Range looking over the Franz Josef Glacier and the main divide with Mt. Elie de Beaumont to the left and The Minerets and de la Beche to the right. What light, composition and texture. Bob Mckerrow collection. Christchurch.

New information on Ebenezer Teichelmann's father

When I was writing the book on Ebenezer Teichelmann, it was hard to find information about his father Christian Gottlob Teichelmann (1807-1888). Recently I found this very good thesis which throws further light on the Aboriginal area where Teichy spent his younger days.

A Vision Frustrated:

Lutheran Missionaries to the Aborigines of South Australia 1838-1853
by
Christine J Lockwood
A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in the School of Social Sciences,
Flinders University, Adelaide.

2007
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION


On 12 October 1838, Christian Gottlob1 Teichelmann (1807-1888) and Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann (1815-1893), from the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society in Dresden, arrived in South Australia. Originally hoping to go to India, they began Aboriginal mission work in South Australia at the request of George Fife Angas, Chairman of the South Australia Company. Angas promised five years‟ financial support. August Eduard Heinrich Meyer2 (1813-1862) and Samuel Gottlieb Klose (1802-1889) followed in 1840. By 1853 the mission work of all the four had ceased. In 1848 the Mission Society headquarters moved from Dresden to Leipzig. The Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Missions states briefly: „At first [the Leipzig Mission Society] sent missionaries to Australia but this project did not succeed.‟3 These missionaries do not feature among pictures lining the Leipzig headquarters‟ walls today, or among the biographies on the Society‟s website. The South Australian mission was considered a failure, best forgotten.4

In seeking to understand this apparent failure, this thesis assumes these missionaries cannot be understood apart from their theology, and asks what role theology played in shaping their vision, methods and experience, and in bringing their work to an end.

This analysis of the Dresden men also raises questions of wider significance: Who should be responsible for community welfare and fund it? What is the relationship between church and state, especially when aims and values diverge? The thesis throws another light on the relationship between colonisers and missionaries, culture and theology and warns against a simple identification of Christianity with Western civilisation.

The Dresden Mission Society instructed its missionaries to gather information, keep diaries, and prepare detailed reports. Angas also asked for reports. Consequently these early Lutheran missionaries left significant records and the main source used by this thesis will be the missionaries‟ diaries and correspondence with their Society.

Recent years have seen renewed interest in these Lutheran missionaries for their unique linguistic and ethnographic records of the Kaurna (Adelaide), Ramindjeri (Encounter Bay) and Parnkalla or Barngalla people (Port Lincoln). This arose from resources becoming more accessible to researchers. In 1960 the State Library of South Australia acquired two publications of Schürmann and Teichelmann on the language and customs

1 Teichelmann‟s second name is often given as Gottlieb. Wm Bruce Kennedy, Lutheran missionary to the Aborigines, Pastor Christian Gottlob Teichelmann 1807-1888, His Family, Life and Times, Coolangatta, 1989, suggests his name was misspelt Gottlieb on an official document.

2 Known as Heinrich Meyer.

3 Ernst Jaeschke, in Burton L Goddard (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Missions, Camden, New Jersey, 1967, 267.

4 Dr Lois Zweck, Lutheran Archives researcher. Personal communication.

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of the Kaurna people, subsequently reprinting them.5 This led to a resurrection of the Kaurna language of the Adelaide area and a renewal of Kaurna cultural awareness.6 Meyer‟s work on the Ramindjeri language and culture7 is being used in Ngarinndjeri language and culture revival programs.8

Other resources becoming more accessible have been Clamor Schürmann‟s diaries and some letters in old-German script which his great-grandson Edwin A Schürmann discovered on microfilm in the State Library of South Australia‟s archives. A partial translation, available in the South Australian Museum, formed the basis for Edwin Schürmann‟s I’d Rather Dig Potatoes, Clamor Schürmann and the Aborigines of South Australia 1838-1853. Geoff Noller is currently retranslating the full diaries for the Lutheran Archives in Adelaide. This material is not all new as diary entries became the basis for letters to Dresden, some of which were printed in the Dresdener Missions-Nachrichten.

In 1984 the Lutheran Archives in Adelaide acquired from the Leipzig Mission Society a large collection of correspondence between the Dresden Society and its South Australian missionaries.9 Leipzig staff had transcribed the old-German handwriting into modern German. The Lutheran Archives in Adelaide now have Schürmann‟s and Teichelmann‟s diaries, and correspondence between Teichelmann, Schürmann, Meyer and Klose and their Mission Society. Some letters are missing. Translation work is unfinished and varies in quality. Different translations exist of some material as accuracy has been hampered by faded, indecipherable handwriting. Friends of the Lutheran Archives, a volunteer group, have published Klose‟s correspondence10 and will soon publish Meyer‟s. Schürmann‟s letters, Teichelmann‟s diary, and letters from Dresden have been translated by Lutheran Archives volunteers. The University of Adelaide‟s Department of Linguistics has been translating Meyer‟s, Klose‟s and Teichelmann‟s letters. Most of Teichelmann‟s letters remain untranslated but, because much of their contents come from his diary, this is not a major omission for the purposes of this paper. This translation work has led to published papers by scholars primarily interested in linguistics, including Mary-Anne Gale, Heidi Kneebone, and

5 C. G. Teichelmann, Aborigines of South Australia: illustrative and explanatory notes of the manners, customs, habits, and superstitions of the natives of South Australia, Adelaide, 1841; C. G. Teichelmann and C. W. Schürmann, Outlines of a grammar, vocabulary, and phraseology, of the aboriginal language of South Australia, spoken by the natives in and for some distance around Adelaide, Adelaide, 1840.

6 See Rob Amery, „The First Lutheran Missionaries in South Australia, their contribution to Kaurna language reclamation and the reconciliation movement,‟ Journal of Friends of the Lutheran Archives no. 10, October 2000; and „Beyond Their Expectations: Teichelmann and Schürmann‟s Efforts to Preserve the Kaurna Language Continue to Bear Fruit‟, in Walter F Veit (ed.), The struggle for souls and science: constructing the fifth continent: German missionaries and scientists in Australia, Alice Springs, 2004.

7 H A E Meyer, Vocabulary of the Aborigines of the Southern and Eastern Portions of the Settled Districts of South Australia, Adelaide, 1843.

8 Mary-Anne Gale, The Linguistic Legacy of H A E Meyer: Missionary to the Ramindjeri people of Encounter Bay, 1840-1848. Conference paper, University of Adelaide, October, 2005.

9 Originals are now in Franckesche Stiftungen zu Halle, Studienzentrum August Hermann Francke archives.

10 Joyce Graetz, (ed.) Missionary to the Kaurna, the Klose Letters, Friends of the Lutheran Archives Occasional Paper no.2, North Adelaide, 2002.

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Cynthia Rathjen.11 Document locations and translators can be found in the bibliography and will not normally appear in this work‟s footnotes.

This thesis has benefited from the works of church historians A Brauer and F J H Blaess.12 The Dresden Society‟s annual reports and works by Ernst Otto13 and Hermann Karsten14 have provided theological background. In One Blood, 200 Years of Aboriginal Encounter with Christianity: A Story of Hope, John Harris discusses the Dresden missionaries‟ work in the broader Aboriginal Christian mission context.15 In her PhD thesis, Anne Scrimgeour uses Schürmann‟s and Klose‟s letters and Teichelmann‟s diary to explore what she calls South Australia‟s early 'civilising mission‟ and its focus on Aboriginal schools.16 She sees the missionaries as part of the colonisation process and „Christianization‟ as an integral part of the „civilisation‟ of the natives necessary if Aboriginal lands were occupied. This present thesis asks to what extent the missionaries‟ aim was to „civilise‟ the Aborigines.

This thesis is also informed by newspaper articles, Colonial Secretaries‟ correspondence, Protector of Aborigines‟ reports, Angas papers and parliamentary papers which have also been examined by other writers. The records of the missionaries and their Society are the most valuable source because they provide unique insights not widely researched. This is especially so of jointly written missionary letters and conference reports and Dresden letters addressed to its missionaries jointly. Missionary records are often treated cautiously by scholars. They are seen as propagandist or as reporting what mission societies wanted to hear. However these Dresden missionaries‟ records are remarkably frank and honest. They often report things the Society would not have liked to hear and which did not reflect well on the writers. They express despair and failures as well as joys. As suggested by the choice of sources, this thesis attempts analysis from the missionaries‟ perspective.

The photographs of Teichelmann and Schürmann on the monument at Piltawodli (see Illustrations) are of mature, experienced men and these are the images most familiar to us. However, it is important to remember that Schürmann was twenty-three and Teichelmann thirty when they arrived in South Australia. Similarly, Protector

11 Mary-Anne Gale, The Linguistic Legacy of H A E Meyer; Heidi Kneebone, „Why Do You Work? Indigenous perceptions of Lutheran mission work in the Encounter Bay area, 1840-47,‟ Journal of Friends of the Lutheran Archives, no.10, October 2000; Cynthia Rathjen, „A Difficult and Boring Task: Clamor Schürmann and the language achievements among the Parnkalla, Port Lincoln – 1840-1852,‟ Journal of Friends of the Lutheran Archives, no.8, October 1998.

12 A Brauer, Under the Southern Cross, History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia, Adelaide, 1956; „A Further Page from the Life of the Fathers‟, The Australian Lutheran Almanac, Adelaide, 1930, 41-67; „More Pages from the Life of the Fathers‟, The Australian Lutheran Almanac, Adelaide, 1937, 43-68. F J H Blaess, The Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Australia and the Mission Work amongst the Australian Natives in connection with the Dresden (Leipzig) Lutheran Mission Society and the Hermannsburg Mission Institute 1838-1900, BD Thesis, Concordia Seminary, St Louis, USA, 1940; „Missions – Pioneers in Australia‟, serialized in The Australian Lutheran, Adelaide 1947-1948.

13 Ernst Otto, Hundert Jahre Missionsarbeit, 1979.

14 Hermann Karsten, Die Geschichte der evangelisch-lutheran Mission in Leipzig, Guenstow, 1893.

15 Sutherland, second edition, 1994.

16 Anne Scrimgeour, Colonizers as Civilisers: Aboriginal Schools and the Mission to ‘Civilise’ in South Australia, 1839-1845, PhD (draft copy), Charles Darwin University, 2007.

Link: http://lmw-mission.de/de/files/lockwood-a-vision-frustrated-5136.pdf

Lake Kaniere, New Zealand.

Lake Kaniere, is one of those moody, spiritual lakes, that beckons you into the high mountains beyond. Photo: Ebenezer Teichelmann

Today I would like to post an extract from my book on Ebenezer Teichelmann, showing the role he played in getting scenic reserve status.

Teichelmann’s participation in the team which pioneered Arthur’s Pass National Park in 1929 must have encouraged him in his desire to protect the special places of Westland. He was concerned that the scenic values of Lake Kaniere were being eroded through the lack of a local management committee to monitor and protect the area.
Sometime in December 1933, Dr Teichelmann approached the Commissioner for Crown Lands in Hokitika to discuss a number of issues concerning the Lake Kaniere Scenic Reserve. On 21 December, 1933, the Commissioner wrote to the Under Secretary for Lands in Wellington.
‘Dr Teichelmann, at the instance of the local branch of the Automible [sic] Association and the Acclimatisation Society, which also acts as a local branch of the Tourist Department, recently interviewed me regarding the prospects of this department undertaking improvements on the Lake Kanieri [sic] Reserve…
‘Incidentally the question of having the control of the reserve formally vested in a local board of control was discussed in which connection it was agreed that this would probably meet with the approval of local people and give an impetus to local interest in the reserve. The Doctor inquired if, in the event of a local Board taking control it would control the revenue from the leasing of boatshed sites granted on the edge of the Lake. I advised him that I would also refer this question to Head Office.’
In his reply 15 days later, the Under-Secretary for Lands advised that there was no prospect of a Government grant or subsidy this year, but that his office would be pleased to see a special Scenic Reserve Board formed to control the reserve, and that revenue from leasing the boat-shed sites could be made available in the future for the Board’s purposes.
Correspondence in the months that follow on the Lands and Survey file show that Dr Teichelmann was the driving force behind empowering local people to take control of the Lake Kaniere Reserve. On many of the letters in the file there are handwritten notes from officials of the Lands and Survey Office, Hokitika, saying ‘discussed with Dr Teichelmann.’ The New Zealand Gazette, number 71, 20 September 1934, announced officially the ‘Vesting of Control of a Scenic Reserve in the Lake Kaniere Scenic Board by Bledisloe, Governor General.’
The following people were nominated for a period of five years: The Mayor of Hokitika, The Chairman of Westland District Council, The Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Westland Land District, The Conservator of Forests for the Westland Forest-Conservation region, Dr Ebenezer Teichelmann, David John Evans and John Noble Robinson.
At the first meeting on 8 October, 1934, a ground committee of Dr Teichelmann, S. C. Darby, Conservator of Forests and J. N. Robinson, was appointed to report in regard to matters for attention at Lake Kaniere.
Dr. Teichelmann had a small batch at Lake Kaniere and spent a lot of time exploring the lake and environs.

The first annual report of the Board shows a far-sighted and hardworking group. They cleared large areas of blackberry, erected notice boards regarding fire control, the destruction of flora, swimming and water pollution; and appointed honorary rangers. They were among the first in New Zealand to express concern about the effects possums, stoats, weasels and rats were having upon native birds. They voiced their concern:
‘The decision of the controlling department to discontinue issuing permits to trap opossums on scenic reserves had caused the Board some concern as it is considered that trappers are responsible for the destruction of much vermin of these reserves such as stoats, weasels and rats. Moreover from enquiries made it is ascertained that the damage done to bush on scenic reserves by trappers is almost negligible, and it is more than favourably offsetted [sic] by the destruction of vermin mentioned which are the natural enemies of our native birds.’
Teichelmann’s involvement in the Lake Kaniere Scenic Reserve Board grew in its first three years, and it became a very effective nature preservation body, but at the same time encouraging recreation. The Doctor's experience from serving on the Arthur’s Pass National Park Board was proving invaluable to steering the Kaniere Board in similar directions. Both reserves today are substantially attributable to the vision of this man. Here was a fine example of one man making a difference.
Doctor Teichelmann was a man with a belief in the preservation of nature for the benefit of all people. But his convictions did not exist solely in the purchase of a few glossy photography books to show visitors, or even the membership of a conservation organization. He lobbied and fought unselfishly for those long term goals. He suffered hardships to explore and record those wonders for those who did not have the means to access the wilderness. He was a man who lived what he preached.

A letter from Norman Hardie abour Dr. Teichelmann.

Norman Hardie (r) with Tony Streather.


Dear Bob,
Thank you for the kind piece about me in your recent blog.
I was most impressed with your Teichelmann book. My wife's mother was brought up in Hokitika. Her father was MP and an uncle the Mayor. Teichy was family doctor and coached mother-in-law in hockey. On Thursdaqy 9th we will stay at the T B&B for the night, during a nostalgic Westland tour. In 1953 I stayed at Porter's house on two occasions and I met Canon Newton---great men.
Cheers,
Norman Hardie

I was delighted to get this letter the other day from Norman Hardie, the great New Zealand Mountaineer. Here is an article I posted on my blog late last year about Norm.

When I was back in New Zealand in July this year I stumbled across a copy of Norm Hardies book On My Own Two Feet. It is a brilliant book about a simple Kiwi guy who started off working life as a deer culler, which helped him finance his fees at Canterbury University where he obtained an engineering degree. Norm Hardies outlook on the mountains reminds me of Charles Brasch's poem, which describes the uniqueness of the New Zealand mountains...... Man must lie with the gaunt hills like a lover, Earning their intimacy in the calm sigh ... (full version at the beginning of posting)

Norman Hardie knows the South Island mountains like few others. You can feel the intimacy he has for his mountains. It must have come as no surprise in 1956 when Norm was a member of a small party that did the first ascent of the world's 3rd highest mountain, Mt. Kanchenjunga. pictured below from Goecha La (4940m), Sikkim, India.





The ascent of Kanchenjunga is an important part of the book and deserves such a well crafted section, but it is his raw love of the New Zealand Alps that makes the book a classic, and brings together the threads of tramping, hunting, culling, skiing, photography, climbing and his profewssional take on hydro electic generation.


There was an exceptionally good article on Norm Hardie in Saturday's Christchuch Press , which gave me permission to run it on my blog.


His name is not one immediately associated with the world's high peaks, yet Norman Hardie is among the great mountaineers of the great age of mountaineering, writes PHILIP MATTHEWS.
It's like the moon landings. Everyone over a certain age remembers exactly where they were when Apollo 11 touched down but no-one paid much attention to Apollo 12 or Apollo 13.
So it is with mountains. You know who knocked off Mt Everest, but not K2 or Kangchenjunga.
Which is why you probably haven't heard of Christchurch's Norman Hardie. In 1955, Hardie was one of the group that made the first ascent of Kangchenjunga. At 8586m, this is the third-highest mountain in the world, but it doesn't lag behind by much – its Himalayan neighbours Everest and K2 measure only another 260m and 25m respectively.
But it's always about Everest, isn't it? The tallest, the most famous. The most glamorous.
"Everest is nothing like the hardest, though," Hardie says. "Of the 14 mountains over 8000m, it ranks about 10th in difficulty. It's just the fact that it's big and has a pronounceable name, and particularly because the British began trying to climb it back in 1921. They climbed it on the 12th expedition. There had been masses of books about it and a hang of a lot of hype, especially in the English language."
You won't hear it from him, but Hardie is one of the 20th century's great mountaineers. In the foreword to Hardie's 2006 memoir, On My Own Two Feet, Sir Edmund Hillary called him "a skilled mountaineer and a formidable explorer . . . renowned for his considerable determination and refusal to accept defeat".
Michael Ward, medical officer on the 1953 conquest of Everest, called him "an outstanding mountaineer and surveyor, whose feats can be compared with those of Oliver Wheeler and Henry Morshead on Everest in 1921 and of Michael Spender in 1935".
Even if those names mean nothing, you know that's heady praise. Surely there should be statues and plaques, perhaps streets named after him. But the lack of attention back home isn't a concern. "They make a fuss of me in Germany and Japan. And the British do, too. I've never been worried about it."
Hardie is 83 now, officially a semi- retired engineer and living a quiet life in the hills of Cashmere. Where else would you find him in an otherwise flat city? Even the driveway is a perilous ascent. There is a sheer wall of mountaineering books and journals in his study, and a cluster of Nepalese artefacts. There is a view of the distant Southern Alps. There are photos from the last reunion of the Kangchenjunga party – of the original nine, only four remain.
Among serious mountaineers, Kangchenjunga was seen as an enormous challenge and a glittering prize – definitely a tougher climb than Everest, Hardie reminds us. Earlier German expeditions had come within 1000m of the summit but were driven back by bad weather. But with oxygen tanks designed by Hardie, Joe Brown and George Band reached the top on May 25, 1955. Hardie and Tony Streather followed a day later. And it would be another 22 years before anyone else would match them.
Their feat was even more astonishing when you consider that the 1955 expedition was only supposed to be a reconnaissance mission for the real effort the following year.
It was another time, the closing of the great age of exploration. By the end of the 1950s, the world's major peaks had been conquered and much has changed since. Everest has become "a playground", some say, just another stop on the adventure- tourism circuit.
Any would-be climber can buy the services of an experienced guide and pay their way up – New Zealander Rob Hall, a man Hardie knew well, died on the mountain in 1996 while looking after a client who had collapsed near the peak.
Yes, the commercialisation of climbing is a concern. "It worries me because a lot of people have been to the top of Everest and never seen snow before in their lives. People from Hong Kong and Singapore. A woman from the Philippines got to the top of Everest last year. It cheapens the whole thing."
Hardie served his climbing apprenticeship in the Southern Alps and first encountered Hillary there in 1948. It was the year of the famous Mt La Perouse rescue, when the injured Ruth Adams was carried down from the mountain in a stretcher. This has been called "the most arduous rescue in New Zealand's climbing history".
That story is a reminder of just how tough our backyard can be. For years, Hardie was called on to help look for lost climbers in the South Island. He can still vividly remember the time he was caught in an avalanche on Mt Rolleston during such a mission. "Unconscious for a while there," he says quietly. "Thought I'd had it. Slowly going out as the oxygen runs out."
The same avalanche took the life of his good friend John Harrison. The bodies of the four lost climbers they had looked for weren't found until months later. And that, he writes in his understated way, was to be his last high mountain search.
As for putting it all down in a memoir, he says that he "got pressured from all sorts of people saying that my story ought to come out. The official book on Kangchenjunga – by Charles Evans – was the most restrained, controlled book I've ever struck. A very gentlemanly British thing that didn't give anything like the whole story."
After Kangchenjunga he kept up a relationship with that part of the world. He made 14 trips to Nepal and only the first three were about mountain climbing. He spent 22 years as a director of Hillary's Himalayan Trust, helping to build schools and set up the Sagarmatha/Everest National Park. In 1960, he joined a team that had the very serious purpose of high- altitude acclimatisation research and another, more frivolous mission – to track the yeti.
How seriously was this taken? "The American members of the party took it very seriously. There were 22 of us from four different countries. The American sponsors were concerned that the medical research wouldn't get any publicity so they talked Hillary into going along with looking for the yeti. All of us who had been there before were very cynical about this. But it paid for the expedition and everyone had a good time."
And it might be a ridiculous question but was there any evidence? "There were footprints in the snow but they were just badly identified orthodox animals."
He went south, too, making three trips to Antarctica over 20 years. Once to instruct Americans in the right way and wrong way to tackle snow and ice, once to join Hillary's party for the first ascent of Mt Herschel and once as leader of Scott Base.
It was much harder then than now to make a living out of mountaineering. In the afterglow of the ascent of Kangchenjunga, that was something he had to consider. "Was I going to go a Hillary way and stay in this sort of thing permanently and somehow make money out of it? But I was already qualified as an engineer and decided to stick to that.
"Once I started to establish myself, I got all these invitations to free expeditions. I never ever went on one that got paid. I had to be grateful for having a co-operative wife and a co- operative business partner – I was able to go away for so long and so many times. It's no good going to the Himalayas for a fortnight. You're pretty useless for the first two weeks."
So bursts of adventure were slotted into domestic life. He had married Enid Hurst in 1951 and they had two daughters. He became a consulting engineer for a firm in Christchurch in 1956 and then a partner in his own firms. And until recently he was to be found kayaking and tramping around the South Island.
Can a sense of adventure be genetic? You might ask this if you heard about his older brother, Jack. A quick search of Nelson newspapers shows that one Jack Hardie holds a record as the oldest man to have ever skydived at Motueka airport. It's become a tradition: every January, Jack marks his birthday with a plunge, as it coincides with the day that he was shot down over Holland during World War II. "The parachute saved him and as a result of that, he does this thing every birthday."
In January, Norman and Enid will be in Nelson to watch Jack plummet out of the sky again, at age 90.
Planes, mountains – Hardie has had something else on his mind lately, too. It's that great South Island subject: water.
In 1948, as a young Ministry of Works engineer at Lake Pukaki, he had a brainwave. If the west coast of the South Island is wet, and the east coast is dry, why not pipe water from one side to the other? The idea hibernated for decades, but by the early 1990s, the surveying maps were accurate enough to see that the Landsborough and Douglas rivers on the western side are higher than Pukaki on the eastern side, meaning you could do it without pumping water uphill.
Among his collection of geological maps, rain graphs and engineering drawings, he has some photos of the Landsborough Valley: the glaciers, the moraines, the boulders. "I began with the Landsborough because I knew it so well through mountaineering.. All the mountaineers and shooters who go in there know it's really wet and the river comes up pretty fast and stays up for a long time."
It's entirely feasible, he believes, to put 25 kilometres of tunnels through the Alps and pipe the river water into Lake Pukaki. And as everyone who has spent a winter in Canterbury knows, the level of Pukaki and other hydro lakes are a matter of day-to-day anxiety. This could be a way to keep the levels up, without damming rivers and flooding valleys. As one Press correspondent wrote after reading about Hardie's scheme, "The forests and snails of the Copland Valley would be unharmed".
It sounds ingenious. The Press understands that this idea was put to the old Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (ECNZ) in the 1990s and that there was some interest before the carve-up of ECNZ into Meridian, Mighty River and Genesis. So has it been on Meridian's mind again since? Spokesperson Claire Shaw says that while "it's a very interesting concept that we're aware of" and "there are clear benefits to the project for hydro storage in New Zealand", it comes with significant challenges as well. Quite a few of them, she says.
"We have no plans to pursue it in the near future," she adds. "We have a whole host of options that would come before that."
Too bad. In the meantime, Hardie's legacy can rest on his mountaineering exploits. It's strange to think of it, but in all these years he's never reflected on what makes a great mountaineer. Can he define it? He pauses and considers this for a while.
"Fitness is obvious but you also need some appreciation of the high country, whether it's geology or weather," he says. "And certainly the ability to get on with people you're with if you're stuck in a small tent for three or four days."
And presumably you need patience? "Yes. Yes. I believe too that you should never stick your neck out too much. Don't take too many risks. If the weather's not on or you're not feeling well or your climbing companion has bust his equipment, give it away. The mountain will still be there tomorrow."

A new photo of Ebenezer Teichelmann

Dr Ebenezer Teichelmann in tam-o-shanter.
I was delighted to discover this photograph of Dr. Ebenezer Teichelmann in the Macmillan Brown Library (University of Canterbury.

I have studied many shots of Teichy and this is the first of him in a somewhat playful mood and pose. I believe this photo was given by Dorothy Fletcher.

Details:
Title: Dr Ebenezer Teichelmann in tam-o-shanter.
Subject: New Zealand : people
Macmillan Brown Library (University of Canterbury) and, where applicable, the copyright holder. Accession number: 1065

The West Coast of South Island New Zealand, Te Ara

Dear friends

You have to visit the West Coast section of Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand. there are some brilliant articles and superb photographs such as the one above of Alec Graham (l), Rev. Newton (c) and Ebenezer Teichelamnn (r). You can have a look at the whole thing at:http://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/en
There are actually two separate articles (see icons below). The "WestCoast" deals with the whole region (everything from geology, plants,history, farming and culture), while "West Coast Places" has a page on eachtown or district (from Karamea to the far south).

A friend of mine, Simon Nathan has compiled this section and says "a few of my favorites are." Just click on the URLS (and make sure that thesound is turned on).
(a) Stroppy West Coasters giving Michael Cullen a hard time:http://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/11/ENZ-Resources/Standard/2/en
(b) A Wellington view of the West Coasthttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/1/ENZ-Resources/Standard/5/en
(c) A few real West CoastersJohn Crawford, potterhttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/13/ENZ-Resources/Standard/4/enSylvia & Gary James, last Denniston residentshttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoastPlaces/2/ENZ-Resources/Standard/4/enAlun Bollinger - not just a cinematographerhttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/13/ENZ-Resources/Standard/3/en
(d) Myth of the Irish - West Coasters aren't all Irish - in the 20C theywere discouragedhttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/6/ENZ-Resources/Standard/2/en
(e) Life doesn't stop just because its raininghttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/3/ENZ-Resources/Standard/4/en
(f)"Humping & hollowing" - the West Coast way of increasing dairyproduction. Huge areas are being re-contouredhttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/10/ENZ-Resources/Standard/4/en
(g) Gloriavale - one of the unusual groups that has settled on the WestCoasthttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoastPlaces/8/ENZ-Resources/Standard/6/en
(h) Ebenezer Teichelmann and fellow climbershttp://www.teara.govt.nz/Places/WestCoast/WestCoast/12/ENZ-Resources/Standard/2/2/en

Ebenezer Teichelmann book by Bob McKerrow. First Chapter

Chapter 1: - Beginnings

There was a loud CRACK above. Eyes swiftly swiveled up to witness a huge block of crumbling rock slowly tumble and disintegrate, then plummet, sweeping all before it. The sun had been warming the slopes for most of the day. The tenuous grip of spider-webs of ice was loosened enough, and with nowhere to hide, a volley of humming rocks cascaded down. With a clatter of ricochet and the smell of Hades they flew past. Silence returned. No-one had been hit. This time.

The ridge was like a knife. Any thoughts of jumping over the opposite side to hold a partner’s fall would be suicide. The parting of hemp fibres would not even be noticed in the swift descent.


Cover of the first international edition

Above soared a rock face, dropping like a forehead from the summit brow. Creases of ice knitted together large expanses of bare rock. Here the climbing was technical and demanding. Flashing axes occasionally sent out showers of tinkling frozen crystals as delicate steps were cut for boot edges. Numb fingers caressed the rock for any projections that might offer relief from the drag of gravity. Skillfully weaving a vertical path, the two climbers stalled at the base of a smooth, featureless slab. The summit appeared to be only a rope length away, and time was racing by. Tom removed his alpine boots and slipped on rubber-soled friction shoes for the rock. Even so, he could gain no height. Some combined tactics were necessary: a push from Malcolm Ross. Tom Fyfe slowly disappeared from view.
Malcolm was uneasy. The rope had been moving with a nervous manner. Now it stopped.
‘Have you found a good belay, Tom?’ queried Malcolm.
‘Not really,’ he replied.
This meant that the protection offered by the rope above would be solely psychological. Any slip by Malcolm would be fatal to both climbers.
Totally focused on the climbing, Malcolm carefully eased his way higher. Some tentative assistance with a tight rope was needed to start, but he concentrated on the delicate shifts of balance, and the play of rhythm and opposing forces. Quickly Tom resumed the lead, abandoning his axe for freedom of movement.
Soon they both stood where no-one had been before. This was the North Peak of Mount Haidinger, 3061 metres high in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, and the date was 1897.

Cover of the New Zealand Edition - Available at Take Note Hokitika New Zealand or at the New Zealand Alpine Club.

The long ascent had taken many hours, and they still had to descend before darkness fell. Tom went first, confidently down climbing the difficult sections, but always aware that Malcolm was just above. Should he slip, both would plummet down the steep cliffs to the ice far below. As quickly as they dared, they made their way to the rope-eater ridge, Tom retrieving his ice axe at the base of the slab. But luck was running out.

Malcolm led now, down a particularly rotten section of rock. Despite his best efforts, Tom could not avoid dislodging some rock onto his partner below. Unable to evade the bombardment, several struck Malcolm: a solid thump to the leg almost knocking him off the mountain, and then another blow to the shoulder. But this was no place to linger. Only minutes later disaster was narrowly avoided when another large flat one glanced him on his helmetless head. Had it been the sharp end, he may not have survived with just a struggle for consciousness.



Mt.Haidinger. One of the many thousands of beautiful glass plate photographs taken by Ebenezer Teichelamnn. View previous postings for more of his superb photos.

There were still some serious sections to negotiate, but eventually they reached snow slopes that could be safely slid. Unroped on the final rocks, they hurried downward. This was a section of schist, lying in sheets and slabs, poised to strike. Some had viciously sharp edges. Malcolm’s axe turned crimson when one sliced his hand. Tom lost a piece of his leg after one nasty blow to the shin. They could only treat themselves as best as possible with their meagre resources, and plod homeward.
They crawled into the safety of their bivouac at de la Bêche, on the edge of the Tasman Glacier, on nightfall. Forrest Ross, Malcolm’s wife, was there with William Hodgkins. The extent of the injuries was soon thrust aside with the pleasure of eating. The planning of further adventures in animated conversation after the evening meal kept their minds on more pleasant pursuits.
Malcolm recovered from his head injury to continue climbing with Tom, ascending Mount de la Bêche in four hours forty, then on to the Minarets. No complaints from Tom about his leg were recorded, but the injury worsened during their epic exploration over Lendenfeld Saddle and down the Whymper Glacier. Despite finding a hot spring for a relieving bathe, Tom had difficulties getting to sleep due to the pain of his injuries.

Matters did not improve the next day. Travel is awkward in the rugged and almost impenetrable Whataroa Valley, and he further damaged the leg negotiating the first gorge. The bad leg was knocked on sharp angular rocks twice in succession. Infection was raging: he had a feverish temperature, and the leg had swollen to a ridiculous size. The pain did not diminish. Sleep was fitful and fleeting.
Nearing the end of their pioneering trip, Tom was swept off his feet and tumbled towards the final gorge. Driven to survive, he scrambled out just in time, but the pain of his leg was now so great that he admitted later that it would have been a relief to drown.
After several days of rest and farm remedies in Rohutu, it was no better. The only option now was to continue up the coast to Hokitika for medical treatment.

÷€÷€÷€÷

About the time Malcolm Ross and Tom Fyfe were organizing supplies and equipment for their climbs of Mounts Haidinger, de la Bêche and the twin summits of the Minarets, a train was hissing to a stop further north in Hokitika. Amid the bustle and steam of a busy station emerged a curious figure. So slight was his stature that it could be mistaken for that of a thirteen-year-old boy.

Thin wiry legs stood askance, rooted firmly to the ground in wide-welted leather boots. His attire had a European styling unusual to the district: tight stockings to knee-height with woolen knickerbocker pants. A sports coat of similar weave clad the lightly-framed torso. He wore a hat on a head of coarse dark hair, and beneath its brim sparkled lovely grey eyes that spoke of intensity and compassion. Delicate, finely-boned fingers clasped a pipe that he replaced between a fine set of teeth. A whiskery goatee beard jutted forward, reminding one of a Captain Cuttle figure.
Beside him stood his pretty wife, Mary, beneath a broad-brimmed hat with flowing feathers. Her dress was more typical of the period, with a long dark skirt, tight bodice, and a small jacket. The quality revealed cosmopolitan origins; a step above what was sold around the corner in Tancred Street draperies and milliners. A subtle smell of expensive perfume was discernable.

Hurrying to meet them was the head of the Hospital Board, for this new arrival was the recently appointed Medical Superintendent of Westland Hospital, Doctor Ebenezer Teichelmann, and his wife Mary. (Ebenezer Teichelmann above)

On 27 February 1897, just a few days after the Doctor set up his practice; the injured mountaineer Tom Fyfe limped into the surgery of Dr Teichelmann for an examination of his leg. Several pieces of bone were removed, and a course of treatment for necrosis of the tibia was prescribed. This meeting was to change the course of the Doctor’s life. His curiosity was aroused as to what lay south of him in the misty mountains.

Teichelmann and 100 years of the Carnegie Building in Hokitika

Brian Ward, who runs Teichelmann's Bed and Breakfast in Hokitika, New Zealand, send me this letter and photographs:


Hi Bob,
Trust all is well & under control in your part of the world. Winter here with a bit of a vengence however last weekend Sat 28th June after months of planning & in brilliant sunny weather, Hokitika welcomed the Carnegie Library building into it's second century.

The Westland District Brass Band led off a street march from Revell Street down to Tancred Street where a group of contemporaries portrayed their historic counterparts in faithfully replicating the original opening ceremony that took place on the porch steps on 24 June 2008.



The pictures attached are of the Mayor Maureen Pugh arriving by car an 1899 Locomobile steamer. (above)




Dr Teichelmann (yours truly) as chairman of the Literacy Committee was present.

Don Neale was MC and also took the part of Mr AC Morton, Bruce White was Mr W Arnott, the building contractor & Richard Simpson played a very regal mayor Mr HL Mitchel. Mayor Maureen was his 'wife' for the afternoon playing Mrs Michel. Afternoon tea of cucumber sandwiches, scones & tea followed after the official opening of the centennial photographic exhibition in the gallery by Mayor Maureen Pugh.

Best regards
Brian Ward @ TEICHELMANN'S

A love of light and shade, form and texture

From the Fritz Fange looking over the Franz Josef Glacier and to Eli de Beaumont left and the Minarets right..

Last week I read Pete McGregor's blog http://pohanginapete.blogspot.com where he was discussing black and white, as compared to colour photography. I thought of Ebenezer Teichelmann when I read the lines "to see in black and white is mostly a matter of imagination. To look at a landscape, a street scene, or—much harder—a flock of brightly coloured parakeets and to be able to visualise what a photo of those subjects might look like in black and white differs hugely from the knack of knowing these would make lovely colour photos."

Ebenezer Teichelmann,(pictured above) the most brilliant New Zealand mountain, landscape, place and people photographer of the early 20th century, was recently described by my friend Bruce White of Hokitika, as having "a love of light and shade, form and texture." You can see it in his photographs. Look at the light, composition and his sheer artistry.
But because he lived on the remote West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand from 1897 to his death in 1938, he has never been fully recognised for his stupendous contribution to New Zealand as one of our greatest mountaineers, surgeons, conservationists, photographers, soldier/doctor, humanitarian and gardener. He also pioneered the term 'knowledge sharing' when he set up the Carnegie library and the Westland Institute in 1905.
.
Lake Mahinapua


The East Ridge and East Face of Aoraki Mt.Cook

The art of photography had fascinated Ebenezer Teichelmann ever since he was a young man, and after his arrival in New Zealand in 1897, he was inspired to compose and record what he saw. When exactly he had acquired the knowledge and equipment is not clear, but by the time he arrived in Hokitika he had both. Strongly in love with the curves and angles of nature, he set about creating a huge collection of images that reveal today the extent of his love of light and shade, form and texture.
Another great alpine photographer and later friend of Ebenezer's, Canterbury’s Will Kennedy, describes Teichelmann’s ability with the camera:
Though the Doctor possessed a number of cameras most of his photographic work was done with 5 x 4 film and a whole plate camera. The few who now-a-day know what a weighty and cumbersome thing a whole-plate camera is with all its attendant paraphernalia including supplies of heavy glass plates, will understand why the porters (used only on the lower levels) regarded with askance, and tried to dodge those swags containing the heavier parts of this photographic outfit.

Red Lake with Mt. Cook in the background. The weather is not that good so look how he places a man to get a reflection in the lake.

Yet, that whole-plate camera found its way, in spite of all its drawbacks, up the Franz Josef Glacier to Cape Defiance and on to the summit of Halcombe Peak; up the Fox Glacier as far as the Pioneer Ridge; up the Cook River Valley to near the head of the La Perouse Glacier, and up on to the Balfour Range; up the Waiototo Valley and on to the Therma Glacier; up on to the Sealy Range; and up the Tasman Glacier to the Malte Brun Hut.

The west face of Mt. Haidinger


This camera which he kept to the end of the chapter reflects much of the finest photographic work the Doctor produced, both alpine and otherwise.
Remarkably fine photographic results were obtained from about the heads of the more southerly sub-tributaries of the Big Wanganui namely the Lord and the Lambert, and from the Divide Peaks of Malcolm, Snowy and Tyndall, and these photographs later proved of great assistance in the mapping of this country.

Newton Peak


On the eastern side of the Main Range with the Hermitage as centre, the Doctor did additional fine camera work from the Sealy Range, Footstool, Haast Ridge and Malte Brun Range. Though he ascended Mount Cook (third ascent) via the Linda Glacier, owing to adverse weather conditions no photographic records were taken. From all his alpine standpoints the Doctor made it a practice to secure panoramas as nearly complete as possible.

Dr. Teichelmann taking a photograph on the Upper Fritz Range, Franz Josef Glacier


The diversity of his photography is illustrated in the Department of Lands and Survey, Extract From The Annual Report On Scenery — Preservation For The Year Ended 31st March 1930, written by Dr L. Cockayne C.M.G.F.R.S, and Dr E. Teichelmann, Member of English Alpine Club. There is a selection of nine of his photographs ranging from a close-up of crape ferns to forest and mountain landscapes. Many of his photographs appeared in New Zealand Alpine Journals, various climbing books and were used extensively by the New Zealand Tourism Department to promote the West Coast overseas.

The successful party after the third ascent of Aoraki/Mt.Cook in 1905. Teichelmann sitting on the right.

His photographic work was acknowledged publicly by the Chairman of the Westland County Council, Mr W. J. Jefferies, in a farewell speech in 1926: “The Doctor’s work in booklets and pamphlets had gone all over the world and he had not spared himself in his efforts to extol the beauties and attractions of Westland.”

How long did Alec Graham have to wait before Teichelmann got the right light and composition in an ice hole on the Tasman Glacier?

The mayor at the time, George Perry added, “He had taken a particularly prominent part in advertising the district, especially its alpine attractions. His photographs were excellent and the record he possessed was a tribute to his pluck and skill.”
It is quite clear that Teichelmann’s photography was a key element in raising public awareness for the early scenic reserve status given to Lake Kaniere, Punakaiki, Arthur’s Pass and the four Glacial Scenic Reserves that eventually made up the Westland National Park in 1960. Punakaiki (Paparoa) and Arthur's Pass also became National Parks.

South Face of Aoraki/Mt. Cook from Hooker valley


But photographic skills do not arrive overnight, nor from reading a book. They are acquired through trial and error. Alpine photography requires a keen sense of light values, and Peter Graham recalled that the Doctor's first attempts on the Spencer Glacier were all over-exposed. Fortunately he learned from the experience and went on to become one of the best of his era.

Landing supplies at Bruce Bay


The Doctor was very keen to see the International Exhibition being held at Hagley Park in 1907, for it contained many of his photographs. At the Hermitage that year Teichelmann was met by Mr Longdon, the director of the British Art Collection, who had travelled to New Zealand to see the exhibition. Longdon was also a mountaineer, and was checking out climbing possibilities whilst in New Zealand. They enjoyed each other's company in the Mount Cook area, before Teichelmann set off to Christchurch for the exhibition while Newton and Graham continued climbing.
Teichelmann’s close friend and mountaineer Will Kennedy, some six years his junior, first met Ebenezer at the 1907 International Exhibition in Christchurch where Kennedy had been taken with magnificence of Teichelmann’s photography.
Among the photographic exhibits adorning its walls were displays of many whole-plate photographs of Westland scenery bearing his name. The outstanding beauty and excellence of these photographs attracted my attention so tremendously that I longed to know the man who was responsible for them.
Kennedy was President of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club and an active member of the New Zealand Alpine Club. They shared a common interest in mountaineering and photography. But the Doctor’s lack of a system prompted Kennedy to help him.
On one occasion, during one of his many visits to Teichelmann’s home in Hokitika, Kennedy, always a methodical man, decided to tidy up the Doctor’s photographic records by cataloguing them properly. From that day on it was Teichelmann's humorous lament that he could no longer find anything.

Looking down the Wanganui River, South Westland


When I returned to New Zealand in November 2003 to do some finishing touches to this book, an album of 600 prints of Ebenezer Teichelmann had been recently discovered in a garage in Christchurch. I trembled as I opened this book on Colin Monteath’s table in his library as if I was opening a door for the resurrected Doctor. The album was divided into 11 sections and each print was a 5 inch by 4 inch contact print of his large format negatives. Each photograph had a neat white border around it, with a number and a brief but accurate caption. Who had put this album together? Ebenezer Teichelmann himself, or was it Will Kennedy working with Teichelmann to get his photographs into a tidy collection? One clue is the caption to the photograph captioned Alf Day, followed by a question mark. Day should have been Alf Dale. Teichelmann would never have made a mistake with a name on a fine and much respected travelling companion. Perhaps Teichelmann dictated the captions to Will Kennedy.
Strangely, all the photographs in this album were taken before 1912. Was this the first of a series or a one-off? The album reveals the human face of miners, ferry-men, Maori communities, ships, railway lines, bridges, roads, horses, homesteads, camps, huts, houses, hotels, fellow climbers, waterfalls, river-crossings and rivers, creeks, lakes, gorges, passes, glaciers, ice-falls, hot springs, ice tunnels, and wonderful mountain landscapes. One classic photo is of Dr. Teichelman, in mining clothes and a sou’-wester hat, ready to go down a mine shaft. (BELOW)


Teichelmann’s photographs (and Newton) appeared regularly in the Canterbury Times, New Zealand Graphic, Weekly News and the Otago Witness and a stand alone supplement named ‘A Tour Through Westland‘ all between 1902 and 1910.
Dorothy Fletcher has in her collection a large brown album with all the photographs that he and Teichelmann had published, along with a handful of other climbers. This album was sent by Henry Newton and has inscribed in the inside cover,
Alex Graham in remembrance of old days,
Henry E Newton

Dorothy said Canon Newton sent it to her father, Alec Graham in the early 1930s.
Newton has made a detailed index of each photograph and story published by he and Teichelmann in his unmistakable handwriting that one gets to know after reading his hand written diaries.
Teichelman (l) before the first ever flight over the glaciers of South Westland in 1924.


The photographs are a smorgasbord of panoramic mountain centerfolds, small cameos of life in Westland, people, homesteads, ships, valleys, rivers, gorges, mountaineering, a selection of which are in this book.
But not everyone was overawed with Teichelmann’s photography. Louisa Graham had to give up the use of her bathroom at Waiho, Franz Josef to Dr. Teichelmann and her husband Alec. It was converted into a darkroom every time they returned from a trip for the Doctor to develop his large 4x5 inch negatives. “This became routine after every major trip in the mountains as Teichy wanted to get the negatives developed as quickly as possible at our house so he and Daddy could enjoy the fruits of their labours after carrying the heavy camera into the high mountains,” said Dorothy Fletcher.
One can imagine the anticipation and excitement that built up in the Graham bathroom as each plate negative was developed, and the results admired or rejected.
Teichelmann was fortunate in having a sound professional photographer in Ben Thiem, who was based in Hokitika. Being a busy professional, Teichelmann didn’t have the time to print his own negatives and then mount them on glass to use as lantern slides. So the Doctor used Ben to do quite a lot of his processing work.
Sherry Cowie donated a wooden large box of lantern slides to Dorothy Fletcher. In the accompanying note Sherry writes, “These slides were from Ben Thiem, a photographer in Hokitika. My mother, Sybil Turner, worked for him in the 1930s. She got these from either Ben Thiem, or ET (Ebenezer Teichelmann), who was a second father to Sybil.” In examining these lantern slides, they would appear to be those taken by Dr Teichelmann and appear elsewhere. However, with the close relationship between W. A. Kennedy, Ben Thiem, and the Doctor, occasionally they would borrow slides from each other, and possibly give each other slides, so they could give more complete presentations.
Ebenezer Teichelmann
Impressions as a child are often vivid and accurate, and Dorothy Fletcher recalls the atmosphere when visiting Dr Teichelmann’s home as a young girl every time she did a trip to Hokitika with her father, Alec Graham, and it was always the last stop. “He loved to see dad and it was always a warm welcome for him and me. Teichy did all his work in a large, darkish room with a distinctive smell of pipe tobacco,” she recalled, as her visits were usually late in the afternoon and the trees would block the sunlight. “He had a big chair, photos on the wall of mountains and people. Cameras, tripods, slide boxes, maps, photographs, books, magazines letters, papers and his pipes were scattered around. “My sister and I were fascinated by his pipes as some of them had little caps on them,” recalls Dorothy Fletcher. He wasn’t untidy or disorganized, rather a busy man and appeared to have systems for filing and storing.

Dorothy also mentioned that Teichy had copied photographs from Buller’s Book of Birds to enhance his photographic slide talks .

Packing supplies up the Waiatoto in 1909 for the first attempt on Mt. Aspiring from the west.

Teichelmann could count on a number of leading New Zealand scientists as his friends. Among these was Dr Leonard Cockayne the botanist, and Professor R. Speight the geologist. On 13 June 1928, Professor Speight introduced Dr Teichelmann to a full audience at the Christchurch Public Library lecture room. The Doctor’s lantern lecture was on ‘New Zealand alpine, lake, and forest scenery', which was given under the auspices of the Christchurch Tramping Club.


In a free conversational style, always interesting, Dr Teichelmann described the different slides as they were screened. The majority were of the Southern Alps, their high peaks, great glaciers, and other prominent and interesting features. Especially noteworthy was the series showing Aorangi, ‘the cloud piercer,’ Mount Cook, from various aspects. For the purpose of contrast they were shown views of the Swiss Alps and of Mount Everest. The views of Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers were especially fine and the combination views of Westland scenery — alps, lake, and forest — evoked warm applause…

Tourism was imperceptibly becoming a significant revenue earner for the West Coast. The jewels in the Coast crown were the glaciers, but tourists would stay at Hokitika, Ross, Harihari or Whataroa en route. In 1923–24 the Hokitika Exhibition was staged, and it brought large crowds to the region. Teichelmann was busy behind the scenes ensuring the exhibition was a success. Many of his photographs were used in promotions and displays.
Lake Mapourika, South Westland

Ebenezer Teichelmann not only mastered the idiosyncracies of large format photography, but he excelled with images that extolled the beauties of his beloved mountains and West Coast. His prints were sought after for promotional publications, and the outstanding quality of his large prints with their superb tonal range must rank him among the best of his time. Had he exhibited in North America or Europe, his name would be far more widely known as a photographer.

The extract above is from my book on Ebenezer Teichelmann. The covers of the two versions are pasted below. Available at: http://www.indiaresearchpress.com
or at Take Note, Hokitika.New Zealand. Distributed by Craig Potton Publishing in New Zealand.

If you want to learn more about Ebenezer Teichelmann, go to my blog which is about his life and times.http://ebenezerteichelmann.blogspot.com

Ebenezer Teichelmann in old age. He was 77 when this photo was taken in 1937.

Two of my favourite Teichelmann photos.

Ebenezer Teichelmann portrait and below, after the 3rd ascent of Mt. Cook Aoraki in 1905. (seated far right)