Death Of "Sharkeye"

Park

Extroordinary Man Who Found N. Guinea Goldfield

THE following death-notice appeared in February in the “Sydney Morn ing Herald”:— “Park—February 16, at Vancouver, William, beloved husband of Annie Agnes, formerly of Sydney. (By cable).”

And so passes “Sharkeye” Park, the discoverer of New Guinea’s rich Mor obe goldfield, and probably the most re markable European who ever entered that great and gloomy land.

The early history of Park has not been recorded. He appeared in Papua, in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Great War. along with other such famous Australian prospec tors as Matt Crowe, Jim Preston, Arthur Darling, Frank and Jim Pryke. George Arnold, the Kruger Brothers, Bob New combe, Belford, Billy Ivory, Joe O’Brien, Gus Nelsson. Incidentally, the Great Reaper has been very busy among those men recently. Only within the last few

months we have reported the deaths of Frank Pryke, George Arnold, Fred Kruger and Gus Nelsson.

By about 1912, the more notable gold fields of Papua were being worked out and the restless Australian prospectors turned hungry eyes across the boundary line, to what was then German New Guinea—a gloomy, fever-ridden, unex plored region, which was suspected of carrying rich gold. They went overland from the Yodda onto the headwaters of the Waria, and in little boats they crept along the north-east coast from Samarai, up into the Huon Gulf, and thence struck inland—generally through the Waria country. The German ad ministrative officials, whenever they found them, hunted them back to Papua —but. always, they came again.

The Germans also believed that somewhere in the interior, behind Huon Gulf, there was a goldfield, and they organised expeditions to search for it.

But, with the exception of one or two men, the Germans were not competent gold-seekers; and, finally, the German Governor issued a formal invitation to three outstanding Australian prospec tors—“Sharkeye” Park, Matt Crowe, and Arthur Darling—to go into the Morobe country, nominally as bird-of-paradise shooters, and look for gold, giving them an assurance that if gold were discovered their rights would be protected to the utmost. Those three, with several others who were not authorised, fossicked around the headwaters of the Waria slowly following up the tracks of the gold, which apparently were leading them over into the Bulolo Valley.

SOMEWHERE about 1913, Darling, with a dozen trustworthy Orokiva boys went further afield. Defying the increas ing hostility of the natives, he pushed up the Markham River and swung round to the left, up the valley of the Watut.

It is not known how far he actually went, but it is generally believed that he was in the Edie Creek district when he was attacked by overwhelming num bers of natives, his party almost wiped out, and he himself very seriously wounded. With a couple of his faithful boys, he eventually got back to the coast, but he never recovered from severe wounds, and he died a couple of years afterwards. But he gave his old pros pecting friends positive assurances that, up in that terrible and hostile country, there was rich gold.

Then came the war, which virtually put an end to all prospecting enterprises.

BUT “Sharkeye” Park was exempt from military service, and he had developed a new technique in prospect ing in New Guinea. All other prospec tors, when they went inland, marched with a line of carriers, and European supplies. But Park had learned how to cow the wild natives, and live with them, and he travelled absolutely alone.

This is how lon Idriess, in “Gold Dust and Ashes” describes Park:— “A notoriously quiet man, tireless and thoughtful. He listened to others, but always knew his own mind. An invalu able man to his mates, for at a glance from him, truculent natives simply did as he willed ... He was a cold, steely devil, if aroused —the natives knew that if ever, in that cold voice of his, he threatened to kill a man, he would do it . . . Intuition had long since put him in tune with native mentality in Papua.

That intuition was worth more than an army. It saved his life; it fed him; it carried for him; it gave him news; it placed what the natives knew at his service.

“He presently began to take longer and longer trips, entirely alone. He could dispense with white man’s com pany—go where he liked —stay where he liked —live where he liked. He found himself independent of civilisation—un fettered by the need for civilised stores.”

More and more frequently, during the war years, Park would fade away into the jungle, on his solitary prospecting expeditions, and generally he would return with plenty of gold. But, grim and taciturn, he told no one where he had been. In later years, it was dis covered that, little by little, he followed the gold right over into its source, in the mountains around Edie Creek. Some say he was guided by something that Darling told him, and that he re-located Darling’s discovery at the head of the Watut; others believe that he found the gold for himself.

Probably, all are right. Darling con firmed Park's belief that the gold lay richly in the mountains between the headwaters of the Waria and the south ern tributaries of the Markham. But Park, alone, solved the problem of locat ing the goldfield in the face of the im placable hostility of the inland natives.

They could wipe out any ordinary pros pecting party. But Park, living on the country and the natives, and subduing them with the power of his shark-like eye, could go into places closed to all other Europeans.

For years, Park fossicked about in the remote jungles, finding considerable gold, but always feeling his way towards El Dorado. And, eventually (says Idriess) “ ‘Shark-eye’ found it in a bend in the shadow of giant Kaindi moun tain, from whose shoulders the waters of the Koranga, the Watut, the Namie, and of another creek (later to be called the Edie), splashed down through the trees to fall into the Bulolo which . . . hummed and tumbled and roared down the ranges into the Markham.”

ABOUT 1922, Park came down out of the mountains and met Jack Nettle ton, who was carrying on a trading store at Bukuaship, near the mouth of the Markham. Park wanted European help and equipment—he could not work his new find alone. Nettleton joined him. It was the essence of their con tract that the new goldfield be kept secret. That was about 1922.

They worked Koranga Creek together for some time, and won amazing quan tities of gold: and then Sloane (‘‘Lucky Joe Sloane”) landed on the then empty beach at Salamaua, and marched inland, and found them. Right on his heels came Ernie Dover, a thin little Eng lishman who had been in the admini strative service. Park and Nettleton kept Sloane and Dover there, so that they would not go to the beach, and spread the news, and start a rush; but it was no use—the prospectors came, singly at first, and then in droves, and so Edie Creek was born.

All the men who were in there early, made fortunes —all except Ernie Dover.

He always missed—Dover's bad luck be came a by-word. Last August, he came out from the Waria to Wau, from his last unsuccessful prospecting trip. For a few months, he was employed as a hotel barman. He died last December.

Nettleton was first away—he retired to England, in 1924, with a fortune. Park stayed a litle longer, but when the com panies began big-scale operations, he cashed in, and went to Sydney. There, he met Miss Annie Quinn, who for many years had been in charge of the cor respondence room at the head office of

Burns, Philp and Co. Ltd. The long, lean, cold-eyed man, who had literally terrorised the fiercest savages in the New Guinea jungle, and than whom none seemed more remote from romance, was himself tamed —by a woman. Miss Quinn and “Sharkeye” Park were married in Sydney, and made their home in Van couver, where they lived for about four teen years.

Already, “Sharkeye” Park is a legend ary figure, and, as time passes, it is in evitable that strange stories will cluster about his name. But they will have to be strange, indeed, if they come into the category of exaggeration. Not even in the imaginative pages of Ellis or Feni more Cooper could one find more re markable feats of bushcraft and cold courage than those of “Sharkeye” Park —the man who, alone and single handed, defied a nation of painted sav ages, and found one of the world’s great goldfields.