The forgotten history of the far, far north
Taken from ABC News
21 May 2012
You could be forgiven for thinking some of the most remote spots in Australia might not have too many stories to tell.
But in Australia's far, far north, some people are working hard to preserve the history of a pretty remarkable part of the world.
Vanessa Seekee is curator of the Torres Strait Heritage Museum, which she set up from scratch.
It all started with a focus on the military history of Horn Island, particularly during World War II.
"I found one veteran in 1997, and he knew five other veterans, and so it went on from there."
"They would each have artefacts or photographs or memories that they wanted to put somewhere they would be looked after, so housing them here, where they served as young men and women is quite poignant."
Ms. Seekee says she'd like to see more recognition given to the area's involvement in WWII.
"It constantly amazes me the Horn Island is not mentioned more often in relation to Australia in WWII.
"Darwin of course gets the bulk of the mention, but Horn Island was also attacked, it's the second most attacked location in Australia."
"We had 5,000 troops on Horn and another 2,000 over on Thursday Island. There were Japanese subs here, the allies used the area as a launching base into PNG."
Also on show at the museum is the history of pearl diving, which was the core industry for the region for a long time until its demise in the 1970's.
Ms Seekee says it was a tough life.
"It started in 1866, and was really the boom of the area, and supported a large amount of growth in the area."
Neighbouring Thursday Island is home to one of the largest Japanese cemeteries in Australia, as many divers died while diving for pearls.
Ms Seekee says that interest in the history of the region is growing, and she's hopeful that will continue.
"Tourism on Horn Island is really growing, and people are interested in finding out the history of the area... there's a lot of it and we're finding people do want to know about it."
Vanessa Seekee from the Torres Strait Heritage Museum examines an exhibit(Nikolai Beilharz: ABC Rural)
