N.Z. PRIEST’S WORK ON REMOTE ATOLL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25551, 20 July 1948, Page 3

N.Z. PRIEST’S WORK ON REMOTE ATOLL

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) H.M.N.Z.S. BELLONA, July 18. A man with one of the loneliest jobs in the world is travelling in the cruiser Bellona to resume his work on the tiny Pacific atoll of Nuklinono. He is the Rev. Father Alec MacDonald, a New Zealander from Wanganui, who, on leaving the cruiser to-day, will not see a fellow white man for perhaps three or six months. His nearest European neighbours will be in Samoa, 300 miles away. Father MacDonald’s mission station lies in the remote Tokelau Group, a few degrees south of the equator. Eight months ago Nukunono’s first European priest was removed from the island in H.M.N.Z.S. Arbutus suffering from a severe attack of the vitamin deficiency disease known as beri-beri. Father MacDonald, who is a member of the Marist Order, was chosen to succeed him, and for six months he lived among the little community of 400 natives without any sight of Europeans. The older men in the community still speak of piratical forays by blackbirders 70 years ago, when many men and women were seized for forced labour in the salt and guano mines of South America. One of Father MacDonald’s immediate tasks is the building of a convent. When it is completed sisters of the Church are expected from Samoa to establish a house in which to provide general education for the youth of the community.