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50 YEARS OF BOOM, BUST & RED DOG

THE LIFE & TIMES OF KARRATHA CITY

Brought to you by StreetWise Media www.streetwisemedia.com.au Premier of WA

Gazetted 50 years ago, Karratha is one of t e newest townsites The Karratha townsite was officially in Western , however it has grown quickly to become proclaimed in the Government the most populous centre in the State’s north west. gazette on 8 August 1969 by then Governor of WA Major-General Sir Karratha is built on the traditional lands of the Ngarluma Douglas Anthony Kendrew. people, who have occupied the area since at least 40,000 years ago and continue to act as its custodians today. The Subsequent development of the name Karratha comes from the Ngarluma word meaning ‘good North West Shelf oil and gas industry country’ or ‘soft earth’. in the 1980s helped Karratha to grow into a thriving regional service centre The townsite’s origins are closely connected to growth in the by the early 2000s. State’s industry. In the 1960s, global growth in demand for iron ore led to the lifting of Commonwealth restrictions on Karratha today is a strikingly vibrant, attractive urban centre. iron ore exports and the establishment of the as a major The town is home to more than 15,800 people and services iron ore supplier. In 1963, the Western Australian Government thousands of other residents living in the surrounding signed the Hamersley Iron State Agreement. This was followed communities of Wickham, Pt Samson, Roebourne and Dampier by the completion of the Tom Price to Dampier railway in 1966, as well as the wider Pilbara. allowing the first shipment of iron ore from Parker Point in Dampier. There is a feeling of excitement in the air in Karratha, with many new projects in the pipeline that will enable the economy In 1968, in recognition of the need for a new population centre and community to further expand and diversify. in the Pilbara to support iron ore operations in the Hamersley Ranges, Karratha was established by joint agreement with the As more families choose Karratha as their home, the next 50 Western Australian Government and Hamersley Iron. years look incredibly bright. The construction of the suburb of Bulgarra began in 1969, followed by Pegs Creek in 1975, Millars Well (1980), Nickol (1981) and Baynton (1987). WA Premier Mark McGowan

Mayor of Karratha

Gazetted on August 8, 1969, this year marks 50 years of The investment boom that Karratha. A modern town built on the back of the resource commenced during the first decade industry, its name derived from the pastoral station from which of this century provided substantial land to create the town site was taken. government and private capital for the improvement and development of Now the largest town in the Pilbara region of WA, the world’s Karratha. richest mineral province, Karratha in local Aboriginal language means ‘good country’ or ‘soft earth’. Electricity, water and sewage infrastructure was upgraded, a Today the City’s ports export both hematite and magnetite iron range of new multi-storey buildings ores, liquefied natural gas, salt, ammonia, LPG, condensate were built and landmark public and ammonium nitrate totalling over $40 billion in value during developments initiated by Council had a transformative effect 2018. on the town. Originally established to meet the need for staff housing for Rio And so, just 50 years since the first shovel dug into the earth, Tinto (then Hamersley Iron), Karratha rapidly expanded with the Karratha has become a fantastic place to live, work and play. establishment of Dampier Salt in the early 1970s. In the early 1980s and the huge North West Shelf Project – then the largest project in the world – came to town, opening up new suburbs during its 20-year development of five LNG trains. Mayor Peter Long HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

WELCOME to this special commemorative publication and development of inland communities after 1900. From celebrating 50 years since the was gazetted a indigenous stories of the “good country” to the first pastoral ‘townsite’. stations and settlements mining iron ore, salt and gold. From destructive cyclones to unions fighting to improve conditions Published by StreetWise Media, with the support of the City for workers in the Pilbara. of Karratha, ‘50 Years of Boom, Bust & Red Dog - The Life & Times of Karratha City’ showcases the rich history of the ‘50 Years’ includes a selection of photographs, including the “powerhouse of the nation”. And not just since August 8, cover image, courtesy of City of Karratha Councillor Margaret 1969. Bertling. Achival images were sourced from the City of Karratha Local History Collection and reproduced with the Karratha was a solution to a mining problem - housing. But the permission of the City of Karratha. road leading to its birth is tied intimately to the extraordinary people who for more than a century endured the extraordinary Special thanks to local history librarian Sally Culver for conditions of settling a ‘new’ land. directions to finding the 1969 time capsule (page 12) and WA Maritime Museum archaeologist Mike McCarthy for his The first European settlers who arrived at Cossack, Roebourne, historical expertise and sound arguments for renaming ‘Sturt’s Point Samson and Port Hedland were determined and heavily desert pea’ because British explorer first invested in developing the ‘North’. Perseverance, hard work collected it in 1699. and sacrifice in the face of adversity, droughts, cyclones; they displayed the same qualities which by 2014 transformed a StreetWise Media also thanks WA Premier Mark McGowan mining town into a 21st century city of nearly 20,000 people. and Karratha Mayor Peter Long for their support and Woodside Energy for access to archival and contemporary images of its Their legacy is written in the street signs and landmarks Pilbara operations. of Karratha, Dampier, Roebourne, Wickham and Cossack - Shakespeare, Sholl, Withnell, Hedland, Dampier. Limited copies of ‘50 Years of Boom, Bust & Red Dog The Life & Times of Karratha City’ are available at Proudly supported by local businesses and industry leaders [email protected] and www.streetwisemedia.com.au. including Woodside, SCOOP Property and Finance and Merenda Group, this souvenir issue pays homage to the Copies also will be available for a limited time at City of pioneers, politicians, companies, councils and community Karratha offices, visitor centre, library, cafes, shopping centres groups which forged a city out of dust. and select sites in Dampier, Roebourne, Point Samson, Wickham, Cossack and Port Hedland. From the first tentative footsteps in the North West at Cossack and Roebourne in the early to mid 1860s to the expansion Carmelo Amalfi Wayiba. Nyindaguru milbanha warrbangu garliam ngurra. Hello. Welcome to everyone who has come from far away to Ngarliam country.

TREASURED STONE

MURUJUGA is the traditional Aboriginal name for the and Burrup Peninsula. More than 1500km north of , the ancient landscape is the only place on Earth where the story of people and their changing environment is recorded continuously for at least 30,000 years. In rock. Hundreds of thousands of individual works, called petroglyphs, were completed over generations. Today, they are protected in National Park, which covers about 5000ha; the largely inaccessible country nominated for a place on the World Heritage List. Rock faces include images of birds, fish and land animals, human figures, figures with mixed human and animal traits and geometric designs. According to ‘Dreamtime’ beliefs, mythic beings walked across the ancient landscape performing heroic deeds and creating plants and animals, rivers and mountains. Visitors can explore the State’s 100th national park via the Dampier Road turnoff into Burrup Peninsula Road, then right on the road to Withnell Bay. StreetWise Media acknowledges the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi, Yaburara-Mardudhunera and Woon-goo-tt-oo people as the traditional custodians of Murujuga National Park.

- 2 - PILBARA DREAMTIME

ANCESTORS of the Ngarluma, Yaburara, Some of the earliest evidence of Yindjibarndi and Mardudhunera people Aboriginal occupation on the North West lived in the Pilbara region for tens of coast includes radio carbon dating of thousands of years. The Aboriginal word cutting implements, including spoons, for the Pilbara is bilybara, or ‘dry’ in the shell and beads unearthed at Boodie Nyamal and Banyjima languages. Cave on Barrow Island, 50km off the Pilbara coast. They reveal the now largely Yindjibarndi people traditionally lived in submerged northern coastline was the area near the town of Roebourne. occupied up to 50,000 years ago. The area is bordered by Kariyarra and Nyamal land to the north, Ngarluma west, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Martuthunira and Kurrama land south and people have for thousands of years passed Nyiyaparli and Palyku land east. Several down stories and paintings of ancestral hundred people still speak Yindjibarndi. beings from ‘the north’. The Aboriginal word for Karratha means Recently, researchers retraced the ancient ‘good country’ or ‘soft earth’. routes described in these stories to better understand how and when Aboriginal The youngest city in the Pilbara, Karratha people first settled the Australian was established on the back of a rapidly continent. expanding resources industry. The pressure for land in the 1960s and 1970s One thing is certain, they had to be is one of the reasons why Indigenous organised to cross the land bridges connecting Asia and Sahul (Australia). Australians first raised concerns over the At least 1000 people were needed to Burrup rock art. establish a colony 50,000 years ago. Acting on a request by Murujuga Alternatively, they arrived in smaller, Aboriginal Corporation, and described successive waves, “averaging at least as, “a significant moment in the history 130 people every 70 or so years over the of heritage management in WA”, WA course of about 700 years”. Premier Mark McGowan announced the State Government would nominate the The geological window of opportunity Dampier Archipelago, including the Burrup closed by 10,000 years ago when rising Peninsula, to UNESCO’s World Heritage sea levels separated Australia from Asia List. The only other World Heritage site in and created most of the islands today, WA is . including those off the Pilbara coast. Kalaru by Nola Taylor

FROM sandhills near Punmu to the salt lakes of Martu country in the eastern Pilbara. Aboriginal communities have long used kalaru (samphire) as a nutritious salad. A rich source of Vitamin A, calcium and iron, the salt-tolerant bush succulent also plays a role in coastal ecosystems. Plants grow to 50cm in both height and width when grown in the ground. They can be grown in pots and provide shelter for small birds and lizards. Nola Taylor’s work supplied courtesy of Merenda Gallery (www.merendagallery.com.au). Other works by Pilbara artists can be viewed at SCOOP Property at 18 Norfolk Street in . Bush Kalaru by Nyanjilpayi Nancy Chapman

- 3 - NORTHERN STEPS

Having first visited ‘New Holland’ in 1688, British buccaneer William Dampier sailed into Dampier Archipelago in 1699 in HMS Roebuck. Dampier recorded flora and fauna and produced charts of the coast from Roebuck Bay to Shark Bay, which he named. He also collected from Australia’s first specimens of Sturt’s desert pea, now housed at Oxford University in the UK. Sandgropers believe Swainsona formosa should be renamed Dampier’s desert pea. In 1801, Frenchman Nicholas Baudin charted the Archipelago, naming Legendre and Delambre Islands. Malus Island EUROPEAN explorers visited the remote North West coast was named after physicist Etienne Louis Malus; Legendre since at least the early 1600s. The first recorded visit in WA after mathematician Adrien Marie Legendre; Hauy after was in 1616 when the Dutch crew of Endraacht arrived in mineralogist Rene Just Hauy; Delambre after astronomer Jean Shark Bay and left behind the famous Dirk Hartog pewter plate Baptiste Joseph Delambre; Regnard Bay and Regnard Islands inscribed with details of the historic landing at Dirk Hartog near Cape Preston after poet Jean Francois Regnard; and Island. Depuch Island and Forestier Archipelago after mineralogist Louis Depuch and Baron Forestier, a general who fought with Duyfken skipper Willem Jansz, the first European known to Napoleon. have visited and mapped parts of the Australian coast at Cape York in , visited Australia’s northern shores In 1861, explorer Francis Thomas Gregory arrived in Dolphin a second time when in 1618 he sailed along WA’s North West and named Hearsons Cove, the Maitland and Fortescue rivers, coast in Mauritius in 1618. Hamersley Ranges, Mt Samson and Mt Bruce. Gregory’s encouraging reports attracted the first pastoral ventures in the In 1622, the British East India Company ship Trial struck a region. He also noted the iron ore of the Hamersley Ranges. reef 32km northwest of the Montebello islands, its southern boundary 8km north of Barrow Island - Australia’s first shipwreck. Captain John Brookes and 45 crew sailed 1800km to get help in Batavia, leaving behind 93 men to perish at the wreck site. In 1628, Dutchman Gerrit Frederikszoon de Witt sighted the coast to the east of the Montebellos after his ship ran aground, possibly near Port Hedland. Offloading cargo to free his ship Vianen, de Witt followed the coast to Barrow Island. Hessel Gerritsz’ map of 1628 shows the discovery as ‘G.F. de Wits Landt’.

- 4 - PASTORAL PROMISE

ENCOURAGED by the Gregory expedition, pastoralist Walter By the turn of the century, Cossack was abandoned. The Padbury established the first in the North West. Withnells sold their Mount Welcome property in 1879 and In 1863, he chartered the cutter Mystery and found a ‘safe’ retired to Guildford in 1890 though their sons retained harbour for WA’s new ‘North District’ (all lands north of the substantial holdings in the north, one of whom found the gold- Murchison River). bearing ore which started the Pilbara Goldfields in 1887. Carrying the, “nucleus of the pastoral industry - 11 horses, 6 To take advantage of the generous land regulations designed bullocks and 540 sheep”, Mystery left Fremantle and arrived at to encourage European settlement, companies and groups Tien Tsin (later Cossack) on Butcher’s Inlet at the mouth of the of settlers associated with the Denison Plains Association, under the command of Captain John Jarman. Portland Squatting Company and Camden Harbour Pastoral Padbury followed Mystery in the chartered barque Tien Tsin. Association also moved north. A party also travelled overland to establish a pastoral ‘run’ on the . On his return to Fremantle, Padbury was Despite his failure in the Denison group, Charles Broadhurst greeted as, “the pioneer of what was seen as a land of great became a prominent pastoralist in the area of Miaree Pool - promise”. Karratha pastoral station. Padbury’s success inspired many to venture north including In 1887, the District of Nickol Bay was abolished and the John and his cousin Emma Withnell, who arrived with sheep Roebourne Roads Board District was gazetted. It became the and cattle and camped at the base of a hill which Emma Shire of Roebourne in 1961. In 1971, the Shire was reduced to named Mount Welcome. Their meagre hut at Ieramugado Roebourne, Cossack, Whim Creek, Point Samson, Wickham, (‘Yeera-Muk-A-Doo’) Pool marked the beginnings of Roebourne Karratha and Dampier and the stations Karratha, Mardie, Mt - the first gazetted town in the North West named after WA’s Welcome, Woodbrook, Waramble, Pyramid, Sherlock, Mallina first surveyor general John Septimus Roe. and Cooya Pooya. Lot 1 in Roebourne was granted to John Withnell on December According to Pilbara historian Jenny Hardie, “although 11, 1866. In the previous year, Government officials from the Padbury’s attempt to settle the North-West was not entirely failed Camden settlement, including Resident Magistrate successful, ‘he paved the way for others who followed in his Robert John Sholl, received orders to transfer the Government footsteps and amassed considerable fortunes’”. establishment in the north to Tien Tsin. Sholl recommended Tien Tsin as a port and chose a town site at Mount Welcome, the place used by the Withnells. Tien Tsin was renamed Port Walcott. In 1871, it was changed after Government Frederick Weld visited in HMS Cossack. In 1867, Padbury’s schooner Emma sank on its way to Fremantle with all on board, 42 people including seven crew (more than a quarter of the people at Cossack). The loss and low wool prices forced Padbury and his supporters to leave the area. Years of drought, fires and cyclones also took a toll on the early settlers.

- 5 - COSSACK

“ has its share of ghost towns mainly scattered across the State’s goldfields but none has a more fascinating history - and future - than Cossack, the first port to be established on the North West coast.” - Hamersley News, December 1, 1969

A CHINESE bakery, Congolese tailor, Turkish bath and hotel The gold rushes of the late 1880s saw a wave of new migrants called Perseverance. Cossack was a ghost town by the time move through Cossack on the way to gold fields in WA. The Karratha was gazetted in 1969, most of its residents having population at Cossack peaked in 1895, with 141 Europeans left by the early 1900s. and 266 Asiatics registered residents. A decline in pearl shell prices and new, more lucrative fields in Broome sunk the The first port established in the North West in 1863, Cossack boom town, eclipsed by Point Samson where a new jetty was (formerly ‘Tien Tsin’) was the pearl capital of the Pilbara, built in 1904. Samson was gazetted in 1909 and Cossack was the picturesque harbour chosen after Lars Peter Hedlund, dissolved in 1910, though a few people continued to live there in Mystery, sailed into Butchers Inlet near the mouth of the until the 1950s. Harding River. (Hedlund’s descendants still live in the Pilbara). Hamersley News reported while, “Cossack was doomed to The Jarman Island Lighthouse overlooking the entrance to become a ghost town”, it was, “destined for greater things, Cossack arrived on a ship from England. Built by Roebourne although a deserted haven for vandals for many years it is Gaol inmates, a keeper was employed to light the four-wick now to have a complete facelift at the expense of the Western kerosene lamp every night until 1971 when it was automated, Australian Government”. providing light for ships until 1985. By 1920, Port Hedland replaced Cossack and Samson as the Gazetted in 1872, Cossack became the port of call for the major port of the North-West. Today, it is managed as a tourist Pilbara pastoral industry, with nearly 40,000 sheep shipped by destination by the City of Karratha, which in July held the 27th 1869. More than 60 pearl luggers also operated here by the annual Cossack Art Awards. ‘Cossack at the Crossroads’ at 1870s. www.streetwisemedia.com.au.

- 6 - TEST OF TIME

IN 1863, Swedish-born seaman Lars Peter Hedlund sailed into WA history when he entered unexplored Butcher’s Inlet in ‘Tien Tsin Harbour’ (later renamed Cossack). Explorer and pearler Captain Hedlund (after whom Port Hedland is named) arrived in the 13m cutter Mystery which he built at Point Walter in the Swan River. A photograph of ‘Old Peter’ (opposite) hangs proudly in the Dalgety Museum in Port Hedland, donated by his descendants in 2018. It has never been published until now. Fremantle Harbourmaster records and Swan River reports show only one Swedish ship called in Fremantle between 1831 and 1857. That was the Nancy, which in August 1853 left Hong Kong with 14 crew and sailed for Australia in 1854 with 13, “Peter was most likely the missing crewman, since records show he was in Fremantle by 1856 because on 23rd June of that year he was fined by the Fremantle Magistrate’s for fighting”. The West Australian on May 11, 1885 reports, “It is now over twenty years since the cutter Mystery, sixteen tons, P. Hedland master,” entered the Harding River and anchored off Cossack. Hedlund is given credit for, “opening up the chief port of WA’s famed Nor’ West”. On October 15, 1858, Peter, 29, married Ellen Adams, 18, in Fremantle. Ellen’s father William was a veteran of Waterloo and victim of the failed Peel settlement in Cockburn Sound. Earning a quid in shipping stock and cargo north for clients including the Bateman and Samson families of Fremantle, Hedlund was Alan Wilson’s family has owned four blocks in Cossack since chosen as pilot of pastoralist Walter Padbury’s Mystery, which the titles were issued in the 1880s to his great grandfather left Fremantle with stocks and supplies on April 6, 1863. William Shakespeare-Hall who is buried at Cossack. The Port Hedland area was originally known as Mangrove Geoff Van Waardenberg’s great-grandfather and Cossack Harbour where Dutch navigator Gerritt Frederikszoon de shipwright Christopher Thompson lived in Cossack in the late Witt was blown ashore in 1628. By 1871, Peter had joined 1800s, having worked on Fremantle pearling boats. the pearling fleets. In 1872, to mark the Queen’s birthday, a Landowner and South Fremantle stables owner Terry Patterson Coasters’ Race was held in Fremantle, Peter listed as master has been fighting since the 1990s to develop his family blocks. of the Argo. “I’d like to see this piece of state and national heritage restored In 1881, the well-known seafarer was killed by his Aboriginal for all generations, including those who will survive me.” crew near Lagrange Bay. His body was never found. Peter was survived by Ellen and 11 children. Peter’s great granddaughter Leigh McNab, who lives in Point Samson, says his extraordinary life is largely unknown in WA. Ms McNab says Cossack deserves a future, presently uncertain because of a lack of State and local government consensus over how to develop the historic ghost town. Ms McNab, her sons and the families of other Cossack pioneers are descendants of the first ratepayers in the North West. Many of Karratha’s streets and landmarks are named after Cossack pioneers.

- 7 - ROEBOURNE

FRANCIS Thomas Gregory regarded the Roebourne area as prime pastoral land good enough to also grow cotton. The townsite on Ngarluma country was gazetted on August 17, 1866. Roebourne residents had already seen a century come and go by the time Karratha was gazetted in 1969. The oldest town in the North West, in 1877 Roebourne recorded a population of, “428 whites, 78 women, over 600 aboriginal workers including station hands, almost 1000 Asians”, most of whom were Malays employed on local vessels. People attended social and sporting events such as the Roebourne Races, held as early as 1866, a boat regatta and sports day at Cossack, held for the first time in 1875. Gold from Nullagine, discovered in 1878, and the surrounding tin and copper mines, also contributed to Roebourne’s prosperity in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1971, the area of the shire (9440 square kilometres), included Roebourne, Cossack, Whim Creek, Point Samson, Wickham, Karratha and Dampier and the stations Karratha, Mardie, Mt Welcome, Woodbrook, Warambie, Pyramid, Sherlock, Mallina and Cooya Pooya (Wickham’s first permanent buildings were erected in 1970). Planning for the construction of Karratha had begun in 1968 when land was excised from Karratha pastoral station, taken up in 1865 by Dr Thomas Baynton, a member of the Denison Plains Association. Karratha became the administrative centre for the Shire of Roebourne in 1975 when Shire offices were relocated to Welcome Road in Karratha. Elections for new councillors were held in May 1978. Historic Roebourne became, “the administration and social hub of the isolated little settlement 1900km north of Perth”.

Roebourne Races 1972

- 8 - SAMSON

GAZETTED in 1909, Point Samson on the eastern tip of Dampier Archipelago was built as a deep water port to service nearby Cossack, Roebourne and surrounding districts. In 1908, it was linked to Roebourne via a tramway so horse drawn engines could carry freight and passengers. The coastal community is named after Michael Samson, son of Fremantle pioneer Lionel Samson, who as second officer accompanied Walter Padbury to the region in 1863. The port of Point Samson played a crucial role in the early 20th development of the Pilbara. By 1909, it had become the main port for the Roebourne area, eclipsing Cossack and Balla Balla on the coast between Point Samson and Port Hedland. The 600m-long timber jetty was built in 1903-1904. In 1912, the jetty is described as having an anchorage to accommodate ships of 200 tonnes. From 1938 to 1966, it also was the main receiving and loading area for blue asbestos from Wittenoom. ‘Samson’ today is a traveller’s delight. A well-stocked general store and tavern owned by former pearler Russell Brady; a fish and chips shop, caravan park, beaches and oyster beds. The town jetty was badly damaged during a cyclone in 1925. Because of the ‘Great Depression’, a new one was not built until 1936 and used by State Ship Services to supply inland communities in the Pilbara. It was 687m long. In the 1960s, iron ore companies Hamersley iron and Cliffs used the jetty to offload mining equipment and supplies until new facilities were built in Dampier and . The jetty was closed to shipping by the late 1970s. Fishing took off in earnest after WW2. Prawn trawling and processing started in 1965 followed by fish trawling in 1989 when partially destroyed the timber jetty. The jetty was demolished in 1991. - 9 - KARRATHA townsite was gazetted on August 8, 1969. Born out of iron, salt and gas, the ‘powerhouse of the nation’ 1520km north of Perth is home to some of Australia’s biggest resource development projects. Karratha was established to accommodate a rapidly expanding industry in iron ore, oil and gas; initially housing iron ore crews toiling in the inland Hamersley Ranges and port facilities at Dampier. Today, Karratha is a major service centre with an estimated residential population of 14,000 and 4000 to 6000 fly-in fly-out workers. Karratha City was proclaimed on July 1, 2014.

- 10 - POWERHOUSE OF THE PILBARA

ALTERNATIVE names for Karratha included Nickol, Dixon, Hamersley Iron mining company and, in the 1980s, petroleum Hearson and Tanga-Tanga. The Pilbara, called bilybara by and liquefied natural gas operations of the North West Shelf indigenous groups of the region, means ‘dry country’. Venture, Karratha also serves the neighbouring towns of Dampier, Wickham, Point Samson and Roebourne. Dr Thomas Baynton and Harry Whittal-Venn named Karratha Station after the Aboriginal name for ‘good country’ or ‘soft Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, predominantly earth’. Ngarluma, make up about 10 per cent of the population. Karratha is composed of nine suburbs: Karratha City Centre, On August 8, 1969, the new town of Karratha was gazetted Bulgarra, Pegs Creek, Millars Well, Nickol, Nickol West, - just weeks after American astronauts landed on the Moon. Baynton, Baynton West and Tambrey. Fifty years later, the ‘powerhouse of the Pilbara’ boasts a population of nearly 17,000 people living and working in WA’s Each year in August, Pilbara Iron, Dampier Salt, Woodside and industrial heartland. other local companies sponsor one of the largest festivals in the North West - FeNaClNG, derived from Fe (iron), NaCl (salt) Karratha is roughly rectangular in layout located on flat land and NG (natural gas). facing Nickol Bay. Read more about the powerhouse that is Karratha at Established to accommodate the processing workforce of the www.streetwisemedia.com.au. CAUGHT IN TIME

MOST towns and cities in Western Australia have ‘time corner of Welcome Road and Hedland Place, but concealed in capsules’ buried somewhere special. A record of their history the front garden of the City administration building on a rock and development over decades. hidden in the hedges. Buried a few feet in the ground, they will often be built over, It reads: “This plaque commemorates the 25th anniversary of moved, even misplaced. the Town of Karratha …”, unveiled on August 31, 1994, by WA Premier Richard Court with his father and former Premier According to the Hamersley News August 24, 1978 edition, Sir Charles Court. under, ‘Time capsule is an unusual first at Karratha’, the City’s official time capsule was, “buried “A time capsule in the new SGIO building at present to be opened on under construction”. Karratha’s 100th anniversary is The burial ceremony was attended located under this by Shire president Geoff Ludkins who stone.” helped lower it into the ground. A SGIO spokesman The Karratha capsule contains a said the idea of history of the Pilbara prepared by the a time capsule, Department of Industrial Development “was to record an and SGIO, with historical documents historic period in supplied by more than 20 organisations the development and companies including Hamersley Iron, of the Pilbara.” Karratha Station and Shire of Roebourne. Bring on 2069! Thanks to Karratha librarian Sally Culver, StreetWise Media visited the time capsule site - not at the former SGIO building at the

- 12 - ‘OPEN TOWN’

THE Hamersley News, July 1, 1969, edition paints a proud and residential and civic areas covering an area seven miles optimistic picture of the ‘New Town of Karratha”. long by one mile wide. The scheme is to build in a series of community cells of about 5000 persons each.” Site preparations had begun, “Pegging is well advanced, access roads have been formed and the bricks-and-mortar Early newspaper reports paint a rosy real estate market, with stage starts in October”. new homes to be supplied with water from nearby Millstream and electricity from Dampier: “In general the residential area According to the Pilbara iron ore giant Hamersley Iron lies between the 20 and 50 foot contours fringing the bay and monthly, “This is to be an ‘open’ town administered by a local will be fronted by a golf course, recreation areas and possibly government authority, and with the State of Western Australia a lake setting”. participating in the capital requirements of the development and assuming responsibility for the operation of normal State Hamersley News concludes: “These are early days in the life functions.” of the new town but before long more history will be in the making.” With 510 homes and apartments, Dampier was full. The challenge was to fill the need for future workers who needed housing and family services during their stay in the Pilbara. “If local operations expand as envisaged and other industry is attracted to the area Karratha will become a major centre of the Pilbara,” Hamersley News reports. “Provided that other mining companies join Hamersley in locating their process workers there an ultimate population of 25,000 to 30,000 is believed a possibility. “The townsite is considered to be the best within a 50 mile arc from Dampier, and the town itself is being planned with

- 13 - TOWN TAKE OFF

RAPID residential and business expansion in the mid to late of a one million dollar office complex and another new office 1970s saw Karratha outstrip growth faster than in any other complex costing over two million will be built in the main town in WA on a per capita basis. townsite by Greenway Constructions.

In the 12 months from April 30, 1977 “BP Australia will build Karratha’s second service to May 1, 1978, building permits station and Greenway Constructions will also build a issued for residential construction Red Rooster/Red Bull take away food complex. alone, amounted to $9.5 million. “Also in the last twelve months, Karratha has had “This was for 161 single units, 13 two new primary schools. The shire is to spend duplexes and 32 patio dwellings,” $80,000.on extensions to the main oval at Karratha newspapers reported. “The light and other parks, gardens and recreational areas industrial area has also received its are planned for the new year. Plans are to extend fair share of new buildings. Cyclone the centre into a hospital. The main hospitals at Dampier and Wickham are recognised as being better KM, Cromlins Hire, Windrow, equipped than any similar size hospital in Western Sweetmans Hardware, Coates Hire, Australia. Kareeba and K-Mar-Line and a few of the businesses have moved into or “The number of doctors in the area and certainly about to move into new premises. within Karratha and Dampier is far higher in numbers than any country town in WA. “Growth in this area of warehouses and engineering premises amount to nearly two million in the “The Lands Department which recently called applications for past twelve weeks. SGIO will soon commence construction 24 blocks at the LIA received 21 applicants.”

- 14 - MOVING IN

HOMEOWNERS moved into the first lots in Karratha on June of Australia - a remarkable achievement for a town less than 28 and 29, 1970. The first tenants were personnel of HAM four years old.” Dredging. Eight families moved in. Wesfarmers opened the first stage of its million dollar The initial contract included 45 homes, followed by a second shopping complex in Karratha on June 1, 1973. contract for 381 additional homes. The modern, air-conditioned complex included a supermarket, Hamersley News reported on July 1: “With the addition post office, bank, hairdresser and fashion shop. of lawns and trees the town will become a very attractive Construction of the TAB was completed by late 1973 and a environment to bring up a family. The first new police station under construction on few ladies living in the town spoke highly Welcome Road will house three policemen of the houses they are living in. “Generally the and one detective sergeant. “They enjoy the small but strong community shopping is done in Council offices, library, schools and atmosphere of comradeship that abounds community halls are in the pipeline. amongst the first families.” one big buying spree By 1974, Hamersley News again reports, It states, “Generally the shopping is done in each week.” “Progress is the key word that comes to one big buying spree each week. The social mind when one speaks of the town of atmosphere is perhaps best indicated by Karratha. From a small start comprising a block of 70 houses, the men who move from house to house having a drink as they built by Hamersley Iron in 1970, and housing nearly 300 go - of course this could get out of hand when the town gets a people, it has developed into a thriving community of 3700 larger population than eight families. people.” “But presently it indicates a fine start to a community feeling It adds: “The Light Industrial Area has seen great development of comradeship”. The crime rate, “is comparatively low. Road over the last four years and now boasts many successful traffic offences however are proving the biggest problems”. businesses. One of these is the bakery which now supplies By 1973, the population of Karratha reached 3017 and bread to Dampier, Wickham and Roebourne as well as approximately 14,000 trees had been planted in the townsite Karratha.” in two years. “This growth pattern is by no means complete and the town is still undergoing development, expansion and beautification at a rapid rate,” Hamersley News states. “Careful planning, with an emphasis on comfortable and practical community living, has changed Karratha from a plain of stunted growth and shimmering heat into an attractive townsite. “Karratha now has all the facilities of most older, larger more well established country towns in less climatically harsh areas

- 15 - GAME CHANGER OIL and gas giant Woodside discovered the North Rankin gas field about 135km northwest of Dampier just two years after Karratha was gazetted. The Goodwyn and Angel fields were discovered in 1972 and together, these resources formed the basis of the North West Shelf Project. The development of these resources requires billions of dollars of investment in offshore infrastructure, an onshore processing gas plant and a supply base. During the project’s construction in the 1980s, it was the biggest engineering project in the oil and gas industry. Offshore and onshore works commenced in 1980. The first domestic gas delivery was made from Dampier to southern WA in August 1984. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) phase of the project commenced in 1985 with the construction of two LNG production trains. The first export delivery was made to Tokyo in 1989. Today, the project is comprised of five LNG trains, three offshore production platforms and a floating production, storage and offtake facility for oil production. To date, project participants have paid more than $26 billion in royalties and excise. The project injects more than $900 million a year into the Australian economy. In 2012, Woodside commenced production at the Pluto LNG project, which is located adjacent to the Karratha gas plant. These two projects cemented Woodside as a leading producer of oil and gas, operating six per cent of global LNG supply. Australia is expected to become the world’s biggest exporter by 2020.

- 17 - BUILDING CITIES

THE City of Karratha wants to turn the former Pilbara mining Woodside says the Burrup Hub will build on the legacy of its town into Australia’s most liveable regional city. It says past successes. Karratha is more than just a mining town, “we’re a major port city”. The City says while mining towns have come and gone, Taken together, the rich fields consist of $40 billion of capital port cities such as Karratha will prosper. investment and will inject an estimated $86 million a year into the Karratha economy. Delegates at the 2019 Developing Northern Australia Conference in July were told Karratha could look forward to The City’s vision is to create a place where people want to 100 years of certainty in the resources industry. live, invest and do business. This is on the back of a landmark deal by the WA Government To get them there, the City has launched the ‘Karratha is to allow BHP to start work on at least 10 new iron ore projects. Calling’ campaign to attract local, eastern States and overseas attention. Also breaking new ground, oil and gas giant Woodside Energy whose ‘Burrup Hub’ vision will extend the life of the North According to the Karratha and Districts Chamber of Commerce West Shelf project beyond 2025 by accessing 20 to 25 trillion and Industry, the next 50 to 100 years of iron ore and oil and cubic feet of gas from its Scarborough, Browse and Pluto gas export production will bring dramatic changes to the fields. Pilbara.

- 18 - KEY elements of creating a “city of the north” include establishing a population of 50,000 by 2035. Since its gazetting, Karratha has become a major service centre of strategic importance and one of the most important industrial electorates in the country. It plays a critical role in attracting the workforce needed to service the expanding resources sector. To compete on a global scale, Karratha needs to become, “a regional city of world standard”. The City has taken the first steps to transform Karratha into a liveable regional city where people want to live and work, with $400 million spent on infrastructure projects such as the Leisureplex sports centre and skate park, libraries and new government offices; a $207 million hospital, the biggest investment in a public hospital in regional WA; and $65 million Red Earth Arts Precinct.

- 19 - STEEL PEAKS

‘Australian iron ore exports, overwhelmingly from the Pilbara, are likely to tip over $63.5 billion this financial year, the highest since the stunning $74.7 billion at the height of the mining boom in 2013-2014’

WESTERN Australia is the biggest producer and exporter of 426km rail line to the coast emerged from the dust following iron ore in the world. the opening of Mount Whaleback. Nearly all of the country’s iron ore - the key ingredient used to The first ore train left Mount Newman on January 1, 1969. make steel - is mined in the Pilbara. The first major deposits That year, a total of 6.45 million tonnes was shipped from were discovered ‘accidentally’ in 1957 by WA prospector the Pilbara region. Today, BHP exports more than 124 million Athol Stanley ‘Stan’ who was looking for manganese in the tonnes of iron ore a year. BHP notes that for millennia, southern Ophthalmia Range, later . He Aboriginal people quarried the unique banded iron formation could not say a word publicly until 1960 when the Australian to make stone tools out of chert and ironstone. Government lifted the embargo on iron ore exports. WA’s iron ore sales increased from 243 million tonnes in Until the mid-1960s, iron ore production in Australia was 2005-2006 to 757 million tonnes in 2015-2016. In 2017, WA negligible, less than 10 million tonnes a year. By the mid- produced 794,937,000 tonnes of iron ore with an export value 1970s, this figure reached 100 million tonnes, the majority of $62.9 billion, a 14 per cent increase on the previous year. from WA. Production dipped in the 1980s, but improved in the 1990s, reaching 150 million tonnes by 1997 and 200 million The industry employs tens of thousands of people (53,221 in tonnes by 2003. 2017), nearly half of all mining jobs by commodity. Nearly all the iron ore it produces is shipped to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The first mine in the Pilbara, at Goldsworthy, was developed China bought 82 per cent of WA’s iron ore exports in 2016-2017. in 1965 and on June 1, 1966, the first shipment of iron ore left the Pilbara on board the bulk carrier Harvey S. Mudd. Today, the biggest producers - , BHP and - operate rail networks to carry ore from the Rio Tinto iron ore operations in the Pilbara began in 1966, BHP mine to ports on the coast including Dampier, Cape Lambert followed two years later when a new town, Newman, and a and Port Hedland.

- 20 - TAPPED IN

PERTH: The official opening of the domestic phase of the North-West Shelf natural-gas project will be performed today - 13 years after the huge gas deposits were discovered. The ceremony will pay tribute to the designers, engineers and workers who have completed one of the most complex engineering feats in the development of the world’s resources. This first stage of the project will supply gas to consumers in Perth and the industrial markets of the south-west of Western Australia. Gas is already flowing from the North Rankin field, about two kilometres below the floor of the ocean. The gas, trapped in spaces between sand grains in thick beds of coarse sandstone, is being drawn to the surface and into the 50,000-tonne North Rankin ‘A’ production platform. It is then piped about 130 kilometres along the seabed to the treatment plant at Withnell Bay, just north of Dampier, in the Pilbara. From there, it travels 1,500 kilometres to the south through the longest gas pipeline in Australia. The bill for the entire project is expected to be about $11,000 million. The liquid natural gas stage is expected to provide the real profits for the joint venturers - Woodside, Shell, BHP, Socal, BP and Mitsui-Mitsubishi. The Canberra Times September 4, 1984

- 21 - GOLD FEVER

PROSPECTORS have scoured the Pilbara and Kimberley Unlike the eastern Goldfields, the Pilbara has been under- regions for gold for more than a century. Today, interstate explored even though gold in the Pilbara is high in purity, more and overseas prospectors regularly visit leases with metal than 95 per cent gold and almost no silver. detectors, camped for days at sites to recover specks of the Gold nuggets in the Pilbara usually are small and flat (the most prized metal in often trying conditions. common about the size of a watermelon seed). Gold was first discovered in WA in 1848 in a Murchison River Some are smooth and big (several ounces per nugget). Mining bed near Northampton. In 1882, explorer Alexander McRae companies have found it difficult to drill these deposits, so a picked up a gold nugget weighing 14 ounces while travelling lot of land remains untouched. to Roebourne. In 1885, Charles Hall and Jack Slattery found gold at Halls Creek and triggered the ‘Kimberley gold rush’. In 2017, the discovery of conglomerate gold nuggets in the An estimated 10,000 prospectors joined the rush. Harry Pilbara sparked an, “old time gold rush”, and scientific debate Francis Anstey’s find near Southern Cross triggered the over how the gold was deposited in an area better known for Yilgarn gold rush. its rich iron ore deposits.

The ‘Pilbara Goldfield’ was officially declared on the same day Though early days, the gold deposits at the base of the as the Yilgarn Goldfield, October 1, 1888. In the same year, Fortescue Basin (dated about three billion years old) are 17-year-old Jimmy Withnell found a nugget at , thought to be analogous to Witwatersrand Basin in South east of Whim Creek. Africa, the ‘Wits’ having produced more than 1.8 billion ounces of gold, about half of all gold ever produced globally. Francis Gregory discovered gold in a region called Nullagine Proper in 1888 while Harry Wells found gold in Marble Bar. In other words, the South African gold-bearing conglomerates formed about the same time as the Pilbara deposits. By 1892, gold fever had spread in the Pilbara. Since then, gold Geologists believe about three billion years ago the Earth’s has surfaced at Marble Bar and in vast areas south and east of original continent, called Ur, comprised part of southern Karratha. Africa (Kaapvaal craton), India and the Pilbara craton of WA, including the Fortescue Basin. Pilbara gold offers an outstanding opportunity for prospectors to strike it lucky. The image on this page was taken recently at At least two gold-bearing conglomerate beds have been a site near Roebourne, the palm-sized beauty fetching nearly identified in the Pilbara. The lower bed called the Cannonball $20,000.. conglomerate is about three metres thick. The second, Upper Cannonball, is about 15m higher and is between one and two Pilbara gold is nuggety in nature, which makes it difficult to metres thick. Gold nuggets range in size from 0.1 to 2 grams in mine on a commercial scale. However, it is easy to find with the Cannonball conglomerate and 0.5 to 8 grams in the Upper metal detectors. Cannonball layer.

- 22 - SOLAR SALT

THE Pilbara produces most of Australia’s salt. Just two years A resurgence in interest for salt mining, driven in part by before Karratha was gazetted, Dampier Salt opened the gates demand in Asia, is expected to increase from 155 million tonnes to what would become one of the biggest export solar salt a year to 213 million tonnes a year in the next decade. Chlorine operations in the world. production for the Chinese market is expected to rise from 28 million to 42 million tonnes a year in the same period. About 65 tonnes of seawater is needed to make one tonne of salt. A member of Rio Tinto group, Dampier Salt pumps At the Dampier salt operations lookout near Karratha airport, seawater (at Dampier and Port Hedland) or naturally occurring visitors can follow the steps to ‘growing’ salt against a backdrop underground brines (Lake MacLeod) into ponds where they are of sweeping crystal ponds. exposed to the sun and wind. Through evaporation, seawater is reduced to 11 per cent of its original volume. Vast evaporation beds line Dampier Highway where locals have installed in the roadside salt lakes a series of installations Each year, about 25cm of salt forms in each crystalliser pond. It including penguins, beer cans, go-carts, Pac-men, sharks circling is harvested and loaded into trucks and taken to a wash plant the letters of Karratha and a skinny dipper. where impurities are removed before it is dried and shipped to market. Dampier’s salt is used in food production and producing chemicals for the construction, automative and electronic industries. Even de-icing roads. The first salt shipment of 19,084 tonnes left Dampier for Japan in April 1972 on board MV Borgnes. Today, the Dampier salt works can produce more than four million tonnes a year. By December 1995, 50 million tonnes of salt had been shipped from Dampier alone. By 2009, 100 million tonnes of salt had been shipped overseas. Rio also produces about 1.5 million tonnes a year of gypsum.

- 23 - UNITED

UNION chaos raged across the Pilbara in 1969. In the weeks leading up to Karratha’s gazetting, thousands of workers at Hamersley Iron sites went on strike to improve conditions such as refrigeration, food and wages. By the early 1970s, Pilbara unions won several landmark disputes involving reduction of hours, over award payments, subsidised flights, dust money and improvements in food and housing. Militant action won these ‘freedoms’, often highly publicised and costly to both sides. The Pilbara was, “a union place”. According to University of Sydney researcher Bradon Ellem, “From the 1980s, the conditions which had allowed strong unions and which had underpinned a particular set of family and community relationships around those unions changed. “State-sanctioned employer antagonism and the rise of the ‘fly-in-fly- out’ workforce transformed social relationships”. Professor Ellen says when export iron ore production began, “workers, their families and unions developed strong social networks and political agendas in which industrial and social demands overlapped”. Working conditions on Pilbara mine and camp sites were tough, “unair-conditioned, dusty, unsafe to say the least”. Australian Workers Union member Harry Hoskin recalls 1968 conditions as unsafe, “like the Wild West”. It was in this political and industrial maelstrom that Karratha was forged as a mining town. Three months before Karratha was gazetted in 1969, workers at Tom Price, Mount Newman and Goldsworthy stopped production for a day as part of a statewide strike involving up to 100,000 unionists. Unionists at Tom Price stopped work in June and July because of concerns over dust, hot water, blankets and food. At Goldsworthy, all unions went on strike in July over shop committee recognition and at two Hamersley Iron sites workers downed tools for 17 days over issues including dust, refrigeration, food and heat money. WA researcher Alexis Vassiley says in his 2018 Australian Society for the Study of Labour History article, ‘Establishing Trade Unionism in the Emerging Iron Ore Mining Industry in WA’s Pilbara Region, 1965- 1972’, that during the 1970s’ and 1980s’ peak of ‘union power’, “the Pilbara iron ore mining industry was a byword for union militancy”. By the 1980s, “Neither friend nor foe would deny the strength of the unions; a situation substantially unchanged until the 1986-1987 Robe River dispute”. He says industrial action from 1965 to 1972 won, “serious improvements in pay and conditions, and eroded some of the power of management”, often in the face of fierce resistant by iron ore companies.

- 24 - Tom Price 1994

- 25 - FORGING COMMUNITY

UNIONS played a crucial role in building the social Karratha was created as an overflow for Dampier,” Mr infrastructure Karratha needed after it was gazetted in 1969. McCann recalls.

One of the key organisers who helped improve conditions for By the mid 1980s, the State Government relaxed the new thousands of workers in the North-West says before Karratha, towns criteria, paving the way for social engineers to best most workers in the mining industry were housed in tents and accommodate workers and, increasingly, their families in slept in swags. future developments.

Aircon was a luxury. “Dampier was a canvas city,” recalls Changes in shift work and new road rules altered dramatically Kelvin McCann, now Chief Operations Officer at Ngurratjuta- the way people lived, worked and partied in the Pilbara. Pmara Ntjarra Aboriginal Corporation in the . The former WA union organiser says the introduction of 12 He says it was how communities were established that hour shifts and bitumen roads changed towns, families and presented big challenges for unions faced with employers social networks. reluctant to meet even basic community needs. “Family units started to break down and local footy teams “Yes we got pubs, footy ovals, bowling greens and collapsed.” supermarket prices similar to Perth,” Mr McCann says. “No- He says prior to 1983, roads were still gravel. one would have been happy without the unions then. It always required leverage, workers had to form a union to ask for and Mates, families drove hundreds of kilometres to watch and get conditions improved.” play footy, fish or stop off at a BBQ.

He said once the first shipments of iron ore left WA, the That is, until police started to enforce the new road rules. Government required leases to address key criteria including “Drink driving wasn’t a thing then,” he says. “You drank to having social infrastructure; roads, ports, downstream stay awake and keep the dust out of your nose. After the laws processing such as steel mills, and, most importantly towns. came in, people stopped travelling, they would stay home and “Paraburdoo, Pannawonica, Tom Price, sprung up because of drink.” the requirement under those iron ore licences. On the 20th anniversary since Karratha was gazetted, former Labor MP and Larry Graham, in his maiden speech as inaugural member for the newly created seat of Pilbara, told WA Parliament the Pilbara was an important electorate. “The Pilbara is an important electorate, and by that I mean primarily the wealth generated from it,” he said on April 13, 1989. “I refer to the iron ore industry, and the salt, gold and pastoral industries situated in the electorate.” A former electrical fitter and trade union official who went to work in the Pilbara in 1975, Mr Graham said the industry had a stormy history, “averaging 79,000 working days lost every year since 1978 through industrial disputes”. But he said: “There is much more to the Pilbara than just iron ore mining. It is fair to say that mining is the major employer in the area and that position will remain for a long time to come, but that is notwithstanding the promising development in the tourism field in Tom Price and the Hamersley National Park, which is one of the truly great tourist destinations in the north west”. Mr Graham added: “In the past I do not believe that people in Perth realised the difficulties that people faced as residents of the Pilbara.”

- 26 -

PILBARA SNAPPER

Pilbara photographer and City councillor Margaret Bertling has turned a hobby into a full time job. And she can fly. In 2009, Marg set up Pilbara Site Pics to focus on photography as a career. An accredited pilot, she specialises in editorial, aerial, mining, oil and gas, commercial and industrial photography and videography across the Pilbara and WA. “I left a stable weekly income and threw away the keyboard with the idea to hopefully develop my skill set in photography and create a job that had flexibility and a bit of excitement,” she says. “I have travelled the world specialising in industrial and commercial photography and videography.” That includes drone images, some of which are reprinted here. From humble beginnings, Marg’s business and expertise caters to the needs of local and overseas clients. Marg says Pilbara Site Pics is 100 per cent portable and, “my office space ranges from the open door of a helicopter at 1000 feet, an underground development in a mine site or a shopping centre commercial shoot”. In another lifetime, Marg says she wrote three bestselling books on home finance, wrote a national newspaper column for five years and appeared on a string of TV current affairs shows. Pilbara Site Pics has won a number of awards since 2009, including the 2015 Australian Small Business Champion Award for Services and 2016 Best Home Based Business. She says her extensive knowledge of the Pilbara region has enhanced her work and benefitted many of her clients. Marg raised her two children in Karratha, both of whom have settled in the Pilbara.

- 28 - - 29 - CYCLONE ALLEY

TROPICAL cyclones feature prominently and devastatingly in the history of development in the Pilbara. Since Karratha was gazetted in 1969, several ‘monster’ systems have hit the North-West coast in what is known as “Cyclone Alley” from Exmouth to Broome. Since 1910 there have been 48 cyclones or about one every two years. Since the 1960s, the development of the mining and offshore oil and gas industries have focused on mitigating the devastating impacts of tropical cyclones which threaten the Pilbara coast from mid December to April, peaking in February and March. Christmas Day (1870) Cyclone Orson (1989) (2007)

A cyclone near Roebourne caused Orson was one of the most powerful The category five was the most damage to buildings and boats. Trees tropical cyclones to cross the WA coast. destructive cyclone to affect Port were stripped of foliage, the landscape It crossed on April 23 at Cape Preston. Hedland since 1975. Reported impacts described as, “similar to that in winter Five hours earlier, the of the include three fatalities and several in England”. cyclone passed over the North Rankin injuries at sites south of Port Hedland. (1975) gas platform. Indonesian fishing boats (2019) were reportedly sunk near Ashmore A category five cyclone with wind gusts Island, with at least four lives lost. Total Three tropical cyclones developed in of 208kmh. It damaged 85 per cent of damage bill exceeded $20 million. the WA region: Savannah and Veronica houses in Port Hedland. Flooding also in March, and Wallace in April. In late damaged roads and sections of iron ore (1995) March, Veronica tracked the Pilbara railway, including that of Hamersley coast (between Karratha and Port Iron. Sheep losses were heavy but there The category four system moved slowly Hedland), then stalled before moving was no loss of human life or serious along the Pilbara coast, crossing land westward. The cyclone produced injury. Estimated damage to private just to the east of Onslow on February destructive winds of more than 150kmh property and public facilities exceeded 25. Seven lives were lost when two and heavy rainfall. Estimated damage $25 million. fishing boats were sunk off Onslow. at $1.2 billion.

- 30 - PILBARA ACTION!

“WHY would anybody build a town out here? Why would anyone live in a town built out here?” The opening line of the 2011 film Red Dog sums up the power of the Pilbara as a backdrop to Australian cinematic successes such as Red Dog and Japanese Story (2003). The kelpie classic directed by Kriv Stenders and Japanese Story by Sue Brooks both feature the early mining industry in the Pilbara. Japanese Story features a geologist and Japanese businessman who tours Pilbara mines such as the BHP Billiton Mount Whaleback mine near Newman. Red Dog roamed the Pilbara, and beyond. Many people still recall having opened their passenger door to the ‘Pilbara Wanderer’, immortalised in a memorial at the entrance to Dampier. Red Dog died in 1979. The loved ‘local’ lived in the Hamersley Iron port (Rio Tinto in 2011 having sponsored the production of the film which was shot in Dampier). The WA Government has committed $425 million in its ‘Plan for the Pilbara’, to showcase treasures such as, “Millstream Chichester National Park, Karijini, historic Cossack and the Burrup Peninsula”. THE FIRST 50

1969: Development begins at the new community at Karratha 1989: BHP Billiton opens iron ore mine near Newman on Nickol Bay 1990: Rio Tinto Group opens Channar iron ore mine in 1970: East connected by causeway Hamersley Range and another in 1992 and 1994 1971: Townsite of Wickham gazetted 1993: BHP Billiton opens Yarrie iron ore mine near Shay Gap 1972: Cape Lambert and Dampier Salt operations opened and 1994: Rio opens Mesa J mine near Pannawonica towns of Newman, Paraburdoo and Pannawonica gazetted 1995: Goodwyn A gas platform commissioned (North West 1973: Mount Goldsworthy Mining Associates open Shay Gap Shelf) mine near Goldsworthy 1998: Rio opens near Newman 1974: North West Coastal Highway sealed from to Port Hedland. Australian iron ore exports peak at 82 million tonnes 2004: Rio Tinto opens Eastern Range iron ore mine in Hamersley Range 1975: Cyclone Joan the Pilbara in December and causes severe damage to Hamersley Rail stocks 2006: Indee Gold Mine opens at Mallina near Whim Creek (shut 2008) and Rio opens Nammuldi mine near Tom Price 1977: Combined population of Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Dampier and Karratha passes 15,000 2007: Townsite of Wittenoom abolished by gazettal and Fortescue Metals Group begins mining iron ore at Cloud Break 1981: WA Petroleum discovers gas off the Pilbara coast with in the Chichester Range the drilling of the Gorgon 1 gas well 2008: opens near Port Hedland 1984: North Rankin A Gas Platform commissioned 2010: Rio Tinto opens another mine in Hamersley Range 1988: BHP Billiton opens Nimingarra mine near Goldsworthy and Jimblebar near Newman the following year 2014: Karratha becomes a City

- 32 -

MUNNI-MUNNI HILL by Pansy Hick, Roebourne

“I paint about Munni-Munni Hill, that’s over there Cheeritha way. The Hill looks like a zebra.” www.merendagallery.com.au/community/roebourne