In September 1932, against green bush-clad hills sixteen miles (26 km) from Greymouth, a button was pressed and the Arnold River began powering the Grey district. The sheet of water behind the new dam — a mile and a half (2.4 km) long, bush down to the water’s edge — was declared Lake Uddstrom, honouring the man who fought to swap the district’s coal-fired steam plant for the clean, endless energy of falling water.
Press the button Mr Kent pressed
A special excursion train brought the crowd from Greymouth. The chairman of the Grey Power Board stepped up to the platform above the powerhouse…
≈ 3,755 km²
≈ 72 m
≈ 256 m
≈ 2.4 km
≈ NZ$18m today
A Swedish name that describes the place itself
By happy accident, the family name carried from the far north of Sweden describes this very landscape — at the meeting point of three cultures.
Chas Uddstrom — cabinet maker, inventor, advocate
Born 3 October 1867 in Gemträsk, Norrbotten — Sweden’s northernmost county, a village of 66 residents when he left it. He sailed south in 1890, arriving in Wellington that December, aged 23, the only son among ten children.
Finding no opening in his own trade, he went to work in the bush, helped form the sawmilling partnership known as the Swedes Mill, then returned to his craft — cabinet making — opening in Tainui Street, Greymouth in 1898. Within a few years nearly a score of people worked in his Mackay Street shop, which professed to be able to “furnish a home for a working man or a mansion for a millionaire.”
“A man of great natural constructive ability and mechanical insight… His well expressed ideas regarding the Arnold ‘White Coal’, as he liked to metaphorically term the energy of the river, will be remembered so long as the scheme lasts.” — Official opening ceremony, Greymouth Evening Star, 22 September 1932
Steam versus White Coal
Through the 1920s the Grey district argued fiercely over its energy future: extend the coal-fired steam plant at Dobson, or harness the river? Chas Uddstrom’s answer never wavered — to him, steam was anathema when so much water power ran past the door. Tap the two sides of the great debate:
The case for the river: clean, renewable, and endless. Engineers’ reports were “checked and checked again” and showed hydro saving some £10,000 every year over steam — about NZ$1.3 million a year in today’s money. Of every stream championed — the Crooked River, the Roaring Meg, Lake Hochstetter, the Kumara Water Race — only the Arnold stood up to every test, even in drought. Ninety years on, the same station still generates renewable power.
The case for coal: Greymouth was a coal town, and the steam plant at Dobson (1926) had influential friends. But it could not keep up with demand — by 1928 a serious power shortage loomed. Steam meant burning coal forever; the river asked for nothing. When the vote came, the ratepayers chose the water — and the steam plant was shut down and sold.
It was a remarkable choice for a coal district in the 1920s — one of New Zealand’s early green energy decisions, made two generations before anyone said “renewable.”
From petition to power
1932: the Arnold harnessed
The main dam runs 235 feet (72 metres) across the Arnold and stands 20 feet (6 m) above the normal river, with collapsible gates on top so the head could later be raised another ten feet (3 m). An 840-foot (256 m) tunnel pierced through the hillside carries the water to the powerhouse. Begun on 3 October 1929 and completed on 20 August 1932, the works cost £128,853 — roughly NZ$18 million in today’s money — and gave the Grey district some of the cheapest power in the Dominion, for coal and gold mining, farming, the loading of coal and timber ships, and new industries for years to come.
Small stories from a big life
The name carried on — skis from Greymouth to the world
The Uddstrom spirit of enterprise did not end in 1931. His son Carl Gustaf Adolph “Bob” Uddstrom (18 March 1916 – 25 October 1992) — father of Robert, Dianne and Michael — became a prominent New Zealand water ski manufacturer, based in Greymouth. Through the 1960s his factory built water skis under licence — producing the hugely popular Cypress Gardens brand for global export — alongside his own Calypso Skis and Uddstrom lines.
Two generations, one thread: West Coast water, and the ingenuity to make something of it.
At rest in Greymouth — “One of Nature’s Gentlemen”
Both generations rest at Greymouth Cemetery, a few kilometres from the river they each made their own. Chas’s headstone carries the epitaph his town chose for him: “One of Nature’s Gentlemen. At Rest.”
Finding Lake Uddstrom
Lake Uddstrom lies at the head of the Arnold River Dam (Kaimata), on the Arnold River between Lake Brunner / Moana and Stillwater, on the West Coast of the South Island.
The historical record
- Grey River Argus, 22 September 1932 — “Grey Hydro Electricity” by James O’Brien MP — Papers Past
- Star (Christchurch), 21 September 1932 — “New Hydro Works: Electric Power Turned on at Greymouth” — Papers Past
- Greymouth Evening Star, 22 September 1932 — “Hydro Power for Grey: Official Opening Ceremony” — Papers Past
- Greymouth Evening Star, 9 December 1902 — profile of Chas Uddstrom
- Wanganui Herald, March–April 1907 — the bush locomotive; NZ Patent 22704 (1911); Grey Power Board records; Uddstrom family records
- Modern currency equivalents are approximate, based on Reserve Bank of New Zealand inflation figures.