Snares Islands – first sighted by Europeans on 23 November 1791
On 23 November 1791 two ships of the Vancouver Expedition, HMS Discovery under Captain George Vancouver and HMS Chatham under Lieutenant William Broughton, independently sighted this small group of islands. Vancouver called them The Snares because he considered them a hazard to shipping, while Broughton proposed the name Knight's Island; today an islet is named Vancouver Rock and the second largest island after Broughton. Māori already knew the islands and called one of the larger ones Te Taniwha, the sea-monster. Unlike other subantarctic islands, the Snares escaped the whaling and sealing era largely untouched and remain one of New Zealand's most pristine places. The name became Snares Islands / Tini Heke in 1998. Share your own photographs and recollections with us.