On an empty beach at the bottom of the world, the waves that roll over the sand are midnight blue and lit by the stars and a waxing moon. I’m only vaguely familiar with the constellations that hang above Great Barrier Island, known for centuries to the Māori as Aotea, some 56 nautical miles northeast of Auckland, New Zealand. I’m not all that used to seeing them so clearly, nor am I accustomed to the sense of unease that comes with being in a Dark Sky Sanctuary, as this place is, despite such proximity to a metropolis. Aotea profoundly lacks light pollution.
My companion for the evening is Deb Kilgallon, a guide and cofounder of the Aotea stargazing tour outfit Good Heavens. We sit in plush chairs around her telescope, into which we intermittently peer. Steaming mugs of cocoa are nestled in the sand. It’s well past my bedtime, but no matter—Deb reanimates me with her knowledge of, and unbridled affection for, the stars. Aside from being upside down, the constellations are different here, in regard to what they mean and to whom.
For the Māori the stars have several purposes, namely, as storybook and GPS. Over 800 years ago, having navigated their way across the Pacific with the sun and stars as their map, the first Māori arrived on Aotea, one of the few places you can see the sky as they once did. I touched down earlier that day via teensy plane (those who fear flying can take a ferry from Auckland, a four-and-a-half-hour sojourn) and joined local iwi (Māori tribe) leader Rodney Ngawaka on a stark concrete dock overlooking the turquoise waters of Port Fitzroy to get a glimpse of the seafaring element. There’s nobody and nothing much around except Captain William Park, of the boat charter company Hooked on Barrier, who takes us out to a cove where red snapper dart beneath the glassy surface before surprising us with a sashimi made from the very same fish. “[The ocean] is our people’s version of the highway,” Ngawaka says. “You have to know the water like you know the roads.” Enter the stars.
“You” in this instance means his ancestors, who named the island Aotea, or White Cloud, when they arrived because, from their position on the sea, that’s how the island appeared. New Zealand’s Māori name is Aotearoa, or Land of the Long White Cloud, which gives gravitas to this sliver of the county. Ngawaka is a trustee of Kawa Marae, a Māori complex located about a half hour north of Port Fitzroy by car. They’re not at sea so much these days, but they maintain knowledge of its map: the stars above. It’s something we as humans, regardless of heritage, can all do to get our bearings.
On the beach Deb tells me that she cracked the astronomy books after the birth of her son, figuring she might as well learn about the stars she was being kept up beneath all night. It takes a minute to find Scorpius when she asks me to, and not only because its familiar shape has made an 180-degree rotation. There’s a lot of sky to parse here, for one thing—I feel like a silly fish in a moonlit bowl—and there’s the sound of the waves lulling my eyes closed and the salt air cleaning out my lungs. But I do find it, pointing happily like a kid, and Deb tells me that Māori star lore supplies a different explanation for the insect shape. Trickster god Māui sunk his fishhook into the giant ray Te Ika-a-Māui and pulled it from the water to create New Zealand’s North Island. In celebration of his catch, he flung the hook into the sky, where it remains today.
