a shallow bay

It's not surprising how many low lying islands crop up around Whitemark given the shallow waters that surround it. This was quite a problem for the early sailing boats that had to navigate in these waters.

Sailing boats usually need deep keels and plenty of ballast in order for them to stop blowing over and capsizing.

The shallow waters here meant that only small craft could operate in these waters in the 1800s. It was only with the arrival of shallow drafted, motorised freight services from the early 1900s onwards that Whitemark could establish itself as a major service centre for the island.

As the roads on the island improved from the mid 1900s onwards, the fight to keep using Whitemark as a freight hub faded in favour of having shipping arrive instead via Franklin Sound into Lady Barron in the south of the island.

The increasing use of air transport from the 1950s onwards, also had a major impact on how people and goods were moved on and off the island. The Pats River landing ground just north of Whitemark in seen here in operation in 1949.