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A warm welcome awaits you inside Te Whare Taonga o Kororāreka Russell Museum
No visit to the Bay of Islands is complete without a visit to the Whare Taonga o Kororāreka Russell Museum. Kororāreka Russell is a place of continuous occupation for nearly 1,000 years. There is archaeological evidence of first Polynesian settlements in the islands in the Bay and oral histories tell of arrivals in this area around 1,000 years ago. Many of the names in the Bay and on the Islands have direct links to the Pacific.
Over 250 years ago, Europeans finally made it to these shores and in the following 50 years, trade was established, relationships fostered and marriges made. This was a thriving port, with vessels from all around the world calling in to its deep anchorage.
It is a place of Māori and Pākehā relationships, a place of unions and disputes and it was the location of the start of the Māori wars in 1845 when the Battle of Kororāreka errupted, igniting the wars in the North.
