Over the Whitcombe Pass. / the narrative of Jakob Lauper, reprinted from the Canterbury gazette, July 1863 ; edited by John Pascoe.

Over the Whitcombe Pass / the narrative of Jakob Lauper, reprinted from the Canterbury gazette, July 1863 ; edited by John Pascoe.

Published by Whitcombe And Tombs, Christchurch, 1960.
Bagnall, L158.

 Softback, (stiff card covers) chipping to spine and edges, small name to ffep, otherwise very good .
70 pages, illustrated.

The southern alps form one of the most mountainous and heavily glaciated landscapes in the temperate world. Rising to more than three kilometres in height, the peaks that make up this 600 km chain of mountains have proved a daunting challenge to cross-island travellers.

Although Maori regularly traversed the Southern Alps to collect pounamu (greenstone) from the West Coast, the first written accounts are those of European explorers. One of these accounts, of a crossing made by John Whitcombe and Jakob Lauper, reads as a tale of epic hardship and suffering. In 1863, the pair crossed from Canterbury’s Rakaia River over a pass which now bears Whitcombe’s name, and descended to the West Coast, enduring 14 days of violent storms and extreme deprivation.

Lauper recorded their entire journey, the narrative being published in July 1863 in the Canterbury Gazette. Almost a century later the historian and writer John Pascoe revived the diary as a small book, which was published by Whitcombe and Tombs in 1960. Over the Whitcombe Pass is a slim volume, long since out of print.

ALL PHOTOS ARE OF THE ACTUAL BOOK. 

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