Resource Development
Matapui Part 1: EKKE BEINSSEN
It is late July 1929. A leaden heat, saturated with moisture, broods over Salamaua, the harbour town of the goldfields of New Guinea. I am waiting on the verandah of the only guesthouse. Like...
Resource Development
It is late July 1929. A leaden heat, saturated with moisture, broods over Salamaua, the harbour town of the goldfields of New Guinea. I am waiting on the verandah of the only guesthouse. Like...
World Wars
Recently I was invited as a special guest to a moving ceremony in Kochi - on the island of Shikoku, Japan. This ceremony was the Japan/New Guinea War Veterans Memorial Service, conducted by the...
Cultural insights
Jim Riley and I wandered about the New Guinea countryside and into the jungle at any opportunity, visiting villages, mission stations, gold sluicing operations, the old gold dredges and anything else that looked interesting....
Kiaps and Patrols
In late 1971 there was a notice in the Australian press advertising positions available as Assistant Patrol Officers in Papua New Guinea. I applied, and in my interview in Melbourne, I was told that...
Cultural insights
From 1925 to 1929, William McGregor, a Canadian farmer/rancher worked on the Gili Gili Plantation in the Milne Bay District as the Head Stockman for Lever Brothers. Accompanying him on this venture were his...
Cultural insights
Our plantation, ‘Sum Sum’, is situated on a lonely stretch of the south-east coast of New Britain. Our nearest neighbours live twenty miles in one direction and thirty miles in the other. Native tracks...
Medicine, Health and Science
Ken Granger, in his three-part account of the above, described some of the trials and tribulations of providing logistic- and transport-support for a group of scientists and other professionals who spent time in remote...
Memorial News
Under a domed night sky reminding us of early celestial navigators ... Flying from a warm Australian spring to Oslo, Norway, just below the Arctic Circle, in late October 2023 meant that the Silentworld...
PNGAA business
Management Committee Update 2024 began at pace for the PNGAA Management Committee which had its inaugural meeting on 10 January with members hooked in from Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Western Australia! The following week...
Events
Sydney - PNGAA Christmas Lunch A small but joyful group of members attended the Sydney Christmas function on 2 December 2023 at the Waterview function centre at Bicentennial Park. Being a very casual affair...
Letters & Enquiries
PNG’s Constitution Belated congratulations on the article about the PNG Constitution by Judge Kerr in your September 2023 edition. From his tenure as Law Faculty Dean at UPNG up to his current ADF review,...
Books and Art Reviews
R Wally Johnson & Neville A Threlfall Return to Volcano Town—Reassessing the 1937–1943 Eruptions at Rabaul This is an expanded, more detailed version of the book published by the same authors in 1985—Volcano Town:...
PNGAA business
Nadzab Tomodachi International Airport Papua New Guinea’s second international airport was opened on 2 October 2023 by Prime Minister James Marape. The redevelopment of Nadzab began in November 2019 with the assistance of a...
People & Places
REGAN | WEBER | YOUNG NELSON, Kieran 7 February 2024 We are sad to advise that Kieran passed away at Greenslopes Hospital in Brisbane on 7 February 2024. He was a wonderful wantok/friend to many...
Rabaul and Montevideo Maru
Silentworld Foundation Commemorative Dinner with the Australian Prime Minister A commemorative dinner was held on Monday 27 November 2023 in the Aircraft Hall at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to honour all those...
Medicine, Health and Science
Jay Maclean The strange deaths of three young children in a small coastal village in the Territory of Papua New Guinea in 1972 did not rate a mention in the Territory’s annual report to...
Cultural insights
What are the odds of two Papua New Guinea-born creatives meeting by chance in the Highlands of Eudlo in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland? When Chris Cobb stepped inside the door of Bradley Campbell’s shed...
Medicine, Health and Science
I left Papua New Guinea (PNG) in August 1973 after three years at Brandi High School near Wewak, and then almost six years at the University of Technology (Unitech) in Lae. Following some time...
Missionary Activities
My introduction to life as a lay-missionary teacher at Wirui Mission station, Wewak, on the North Coast of PNG, could not have been more unique. Dutifully, on the morning of 28 January 1959, I...
Resource Development
The mining industry was going through a boom cycle worldwide with companies like US-based Kennecott Corporation investing in exploration in Australia and New Guinea in a big way, and the idea of the adventure...
Memorial News
Unexpectedly there are two Japanese memorials on the Kokoda Track. The first is that erected in 1979 by the Japanese PNG Goodwill Society with the permission of local authorities after it was agreed that...