White Island was named by Capt Cook in 1769 after the white
cloud covering the island. However he failed to notice it was a
volcano. Earlier Maori named it ‘Te Puia o Whakaari’ literally
meaning: ‘The Dramatic Volcano’. Today’s visitors will find it
no less dramatic, with its smouldering crater emitting steam and
sulphur constantly threatening to erupt into violence.
Seismologists monitor the island and it is usually on an alert
rating of 1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 5. Its last significant
eruption was in 2000 but between 1981-3 the volcano experienced
a major eruption which decimated the island’s Puhutukawa forest
and formed a new crater which later became the present day lake
in the In the early 1900’s a sulphur mining operation was
commenced on the island but it ended in an horrific disaster
when all 10 miners disappeared following an eruption; the only
survivor being the camp cat. The mining operation was resumed
based at a safer part of the island but was abandoned in the
1930’s because of the poor mineral