Local villagers have lived along the river for many millennia and the river has formed the basis for food, transport and culture. There are at least 100 distinct villages and hamlets along the river, and most likely more. , at work in the middle Sepik
Early exploration European contact with the river started in 1885, shortly after
Germany established colonial control over
German New Guinea or Kaiser Wilhelmsland. The river was named by
Otto Finsch,
Kaiserin Augusta, after the German Empress
Augusta. The colony was initially managed by the
German New Guinea Company (Neuguinea-Kompagnie). Finsch, in the ship
Samoa, entered only the estuary. He returned a year later, and the
Samoa launched a smaller vessel that navigated about upstream from its mouth. For the most part, German interest in the river was mainly to explore its economic potential, to collect artifacts, and to recruit native laborers to work on coastal and island copra plantations. In 1886 and 1887, further expeditions by
steam boat were conducted by the Germans and over were explored. In the 1890s, missionaries from the
Society of the Divine Word or SVD begin to proselytize along the river. Europeans now increased their travels and presence along the river. In the early twentieth century, several major expeditions to the river include the Südsee-Expedition sponsored by the Hamburg Academic of Science, the German-Dutch Border Expedition and the Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss-Expedition These expeditions, mainly German, collected flora and fauna, studied local tribes, and produced the first maps. The station town of
Angoram was established in 1913 as a base on the lower Sepik for explorations, but with the beginning of
World War I, the explorations ceased. In 1935
Sir Walter McNicoll, the new administrator of the Territory of New Guinea, travelled up length of the Sepik to "have a look at the river people and the kind of country along the banks".
Modern 'explorers' , Maprik District, in a
Haus Tambaran,
Ingo Kühl, Tomulopa Deko and indigenous men, 2012 Despite the thorough exploration of the Sepik and the river basin by Europeans starting with the 1880s, and the extraordinarily keen knowledge of the region by local people and communities, many travelers today still see their tourism in the area as heroic efforts. Part of this fantasy is that the river tribes are often said to have "little contact with the modern world," as the
Los Angeles Times put it as late as 2017. But that is just not true, and certainly not for a sizable tourist vessel operated by Coral Expeditions. Traveling the river is said to be "one of the last great adventures on earth". For example, in 2010 Clark Carter and Andrew Johnson traveled the length of the Sepik River from source to sea. They hiked to the source from
Telefomin and kayaked down the upper reaches in an inflatable kayak. After nearly drowning in a section of rapids near Telefomin, they decided to walk through the jungle, following the river until it was calm enough to take a
dugout canoe the remaining to the
Bismarck Sea. The expedition took six weeks. "The Sepik really appealed to me," said Carter, "because it conjures up images of remote tribes and wild animals. Probably the most alluring thing for me though, is just how un-travelled the area is." Also in 2010, the painter
Ingo Kühl, accompanied by the local artist Tomulopa Deko, traveled from
Goroka via
Madang,
Wewak and
Maprik to
Pagwi and from there on the Sepik upriver to
Ambunti and to the villages of Maliwai, Yambon and
Yessan. He described his experiences in an illustrated book. In 2012 he repeated this expedition together with his wife and Tom Deko. They reached the settlements of Oum Number 1 and Oum Number 2 and the April River, a tributary of the Sepik.
World War II The
Japanese held the area throughout most of the
Second World War. By the end of the war, though, the Japanese had been completely surrounded after
Hollandia and
Aitape in
Netherlands New Guinea were captured by Allied forces in April 1944 during
Operations Reckless and
Persecution. The
Aitape-Wewak campaign, the battle to defeat the remaining forces by the
Australian Army, was hard-fought and drawn out due to the terrain, lasting until the end of the war in August 1945. The Australians eventually pushed the Japanese back to the village of
Timbunke on the middle Sepik in July 1945. After an Australian
RAAF plane landed from Timbunke the Japanese suspected that the villagers had collaborated with the Australians and proceeded to massacre 100 of the villagers. ==Artwork==