Historical expertise has been added to the council’s stage two development of Wānaka’s lakefront as work progresses to update Wānaka’s original Millennium Path.

Kai Tahu historian and former senior lecturer in Māori history at Otago University Dr Michael Stevens has been brought onto the project together with Otago University history graduate Andrew Stewart, alongside Ken Thomlinson, local history buff and author of The Upper Clutha Māori, and Mount Aspiring College history teacher Ed Waddington.

The historians, together with the Millennium Path working group, have been tasked with reviewing the original tiles’ content and identifying any “notable historical” omissions from the 650m pathway along the Roys Bay foreshore (opposite Pembroke Park).

Updating the tiles’ content was to ensure they reflected accurate, relevant historical information “described in a way that’s sensitive to the whole community”, Queenstown Lakes District Council media advisor Sam White said.

He said the next stage of the project will be to agree the criteria against which events and historical information might be included, and for this information to be verified against credible sources. 

“We ...expect to have most content agreed against this criteria by the end of the summer holidays,” he said.

A select group of historians and others is working with council to “update” the content of new tiles which will replace these original tiles.

However, council has no plans to consult the community about the content of the new tiles before they’re relaid.

“Information will be shared with the Wānaka Community Board and we’ll be updating the community on the overall design of the path...but there are currently no plans for community-wide consultation on individual tiles,” Sam said.

In contrast to the group deciding the content of the new tiles, the original tiles content was created by Wānaka locals and the tiles and path were paid for by local businesses and grants.

The Millennium Project was a community effort to celebrate the new millennium more than 20 years ago and Liz Hall, the project’s driving force, said the original project had zero funding from the council.

“I had to find funding to pay for it and most other community projects,” she said, but the lack of council investment meant the community got behind and participated in “an artistic piece of [Wānaka’s] history down on the lakefront”. 

“That is the way things were back then,” she said. 

“The people of this community who bought a tile and got their names on that tile to pay for the project will still be recognised in this new version of the historical path.”

An information board with photos explaining the story of the Millennium Project is also planned, Liz said.

Council originally budgeted $2.8M for LDP stage two which includes, toilets, parking, pathways, seating and natural spaces as well as the removal, renewal and relocation of the tiled path. 

Despite more than 4,400 people signing a petition not to remove the original path, council’s stage two plans required the tiles to be shifted; but as that would destroy the tiles council decided it would replace and relocate them alongside a planned new path.

Sam said council had sourced thicker, more resilient tiles that are less likely to crack. They will be slightly larger (330x330mm rectangles rather than the original 300x300mm squares) and their historical content will be etched and inked. 

At this point, council is unable to advise what other aspects of the new path would be altered from the original; overall path length, total number of tiles, design and budget allocation won’t be known until the final detailed design for stage two is agreed, Sam said.

PHOTOS: Wānaka App