Invercargill Archives

Overview This is quite a lengthy interview easily divided into three parts, Nightcaps, World War II and Te Anau. Now in his eighties, Alf has good recall of his early years visiting the Te Anau basin in the 1920s as well as those first post-war years when he and Thelma chose to live in what was then still a small settlement. Listening through the interview you will hear descriptive details about some of the long gone people and dwellings that first dotted the water's edge of Lake Te Anau.

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...