Invercargill Archives

Overview Hunter's first encounter with the forests and lakes of Fiordland occurred when his parents shifted south from Auckland bringing him and his younger brother with them. From an early age the allure of the bush stayed with him and by his late teens he knew it was where he wanted to live and work. For the next twenty-five years, Hunter became a professional deer hunter setting up his own base in the Back Valley of Manapouri. Taking knowledge from older bushmen and hunters, he rebuilt former cattle...

Overview Vernon Thompson has been hunting wild deer since boyhood. A rapid rise in deer numbers in the south by the late 1950s meant he and his brothers, Bill and Nelson, were able to turn a weekend interest into a commercial enterprise. At first, using boats built in their fathers woolshed, the Thompson boys kept within the Lake Monowai and southem coastal areas. But increasing competition pushed Vernon to move to Te Anau where he was able to work as a groundhunter on the lake shores as well as those...

Overview In this interview John talks at length about his family origins in Estonia and the lives of his forebears who came to New Zealand in the 1850s. John was born in Otautau and moved to Dunedin after he started primary school. John’s family later moved to Waitati and it was here that John’s involvement with deer hunting started. John started with the Forest service in 1959 and in the early 1960s John and his wife Aloma moved to Te Anau. As well as hunting, John describes his role in search and...