Artwork Information

In the 1850s, William Swanson ran a successful logging business in Hobsonville and Swanson. A family friend of Goldie, he pioneered the use of timber dams to transport kauri logs out of the Waitakere Ranges.

As kauri timber was felled from the land, gum diggers would scour the land for kauri-gum while farmers took over the cleared land. (Enduring Nature: Hoki Atu Hoki Mai, 2004)