Te Āti Awa and
Ngāti Tama recognize the channel Kura Te Au as an important historic (food source), and settlement for
Te Āti Awa. The channel was used as a primary highway by
Te Āti Awa, and is still monitored and defended by the iwi in the environmental courts. The name Kura Te Au originates from the red colour of the sea caused by a variety of plankton and the high populations of crustacean krill. According to legend, Kura Te Au is where
Kupe killed the giant, mythical octopus,
Te Wheke-a-Muturangi, causing its blood to run through the channel, turning the water red.
Kurahaupō and
Rangitāne give the meaning "the red current" for Kura Te Au.
James Cook anchored several times in the nearby bay he named
Ship Cove. He sighted the Tory Channel in an excursion on the pinnace from his ship
HMS Resolution on 5 November 1774.
John Guard established the first permanent whaling station on
Arapaoa Island in 1827, targeting whales in the Tory Channel for their
baleen and
whale oil. Another whaler,
John Stein, navigated the areas between
Queen Charlotte Sound and
Cloudy Bay in his whaling barque William the Fourth, and found "a very large navigable river ... which he named William the Fourth River." According to Robert McNab's 1913 book 'The Old Whaling Days', which drew upon the knowledge of John Duncan, a resident of the Sound, to identify the locations visited by Stein in his 1832 voyage, this 'river' is now known as the Tory Channel. Tory Channel was accurately surveyed in 1840 and named after the
New Zealand Company ship
Tory, a pioneer ship that brought British colonists to
Wellington. Around this time, whaling stations were already operating in Te Awaiti Bay. Between 1911 and 1964, the Perano family hunted whales from Whekenui Bay.
Humpback whales were spotted from the hills at the Tory Channel entrance during their migration through Cook Strait. The Perano Whaling Station was the last whaling operation in New Zealand and closed in 1964. The name of the channel was officially altered to Tory Channel / Kura Te Au in August 2014. ==Tidal power==