“The Race was regarded as one of the most imaginative engineering feats in the world at the time."

Over 20 years ago RDRML commissioned Glenys Hopkinson to research and write the history of The Race. Glenys’s perspective was unique, at 23 years of age she moved to the Montalto camp in July 1938 to set up home with her husband Bill, a dragline driver at Klondyke.

Foreword – Locals talk about “The Race” with great passion, nostalgia and admiration.

The Rangitata Diversion Race is the pride and joy of farmers and other locals in Mid Canterbury in the heart of New Zealand’s South Island.

“Water put to work, for power, for irrigation”

The grim events of the last few years have convinced me, and I am sure most New Zealanders, of the vital necessity of greater population if this land is to remain the heritage of our kith and kin.

Population cannot expand faster than the rate at which productive and congenial employment becomes available.

I have always been impressed with the advantages which irrigation offers in this respect, especially in the vast open spaces of Canterbury and Otago. When it is possible, as in this instance, to generate electric power as well, a double blessing is conferred upon the land.