This is part of Seeking Quiet, a collection of stories that highlights our quest for stillness in an increasingly noisy world. Read more here.
It’s midnight and I’m standing on a mountain in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. In front of me, the swooping alpine scenery unfurls into complete darkness. Silence settles and it feels like the noise of the day has been sucked into a vacuum. The vast expanse of cloud-busting mountains, honey-hued valleys and gin-clear lakes, which normally sit under a tight-blue sky, is gone. Lake Takapō, a region recently crowned New Zealand’s sunniest place, has a different side to it. Part of the Aoraki/Mount Cook Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, the whopping 4,300 square kilometers (over 1,600 square miles) of alpine countryside, with minimal light pollution, is also one of the world’s largest stargazing sanctuaries.
In 2019, The Dark Sky Project, which is co-owned by Ngai Tahu, one of the largest iwi (tribes) in New Zealand, was revealed on the edge of glassy alpine Lake Takapō. The concrete and glass building, named Rehua—a sacred atua, or God, considered the chief of stars—combines Tātai Aroraki (Māori astronomy) with scientific knowledge and multimedia exhibitions, which attracts tourists like myself to the Mackenzie region for its unpolluted stargazing and the undiluted landscapes of wide-open vistas, mountains, and never-ending sky.
Pondering the vastness of the universe is part of the mission of this kind of astrotourism, where darkness is not simply the absence of light, but something that needs preserving, like our coastlines or coral reefs. Learning about what’s beyond the clouds and being able to trace the patterns of twilight is crucial to environmental health. Victoria (Tori) Campbell, a celestial Māori guide and astronomer, sees the night sky as “part of the landscape and a holistic system that connects to the environment and reconnects us with lost knowledge and to our ancestors.”
For the Iwi Māori katoa (Māori tribes), the stars acted as a map for their Polynesian ancestors, who around 3,000 years ago before European settlement, took to the seas in their handmade wakas (canoes) across the Pacific Ocean from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, before migrating to the far corners of the ‘Polynesian triangle:’ Marquesas and Hawaii, Rapa Nui/Easter Island, and New Zealand. They had an intricate understanding of astrology and would rely on constellations to steer them during long voyages. “In Māori culture, the sky was a vast map of stories, each star and constellation rich with meaning, offering insights into everything from seasonal changes to human life. Their celestial beliefs were a blend of navigation, spirituality, and connection to the cosmos,” Campbell explains.
Currently, about 80% of people live under light-polluted skies; and the Milky Way is no longer visible to a third of us. Here in Takapō, there are strict regulations when it comes to light pollution, like capping streetlights and restricting certain types of artificial lighting. As night descends, it becomes thrillingly darker than most places in the world, and up above, the Milky Way ripples like a luminous ribbon. Meanwhile, the hook of the scorpion tail signifies the Scorpius constellation and the ubiquitous Southern Cross—seen on flags and emblems around the Southern Hemisphere—shines bright.
