1.3 Kananook Creek

The first Europeans who arrived in Port Phillip Bay were attracted to the mouth of the Kananook Creek when they were looking for a reliable supply of freshwater. Since then the creek has played a part in the deliberations of local councils and local citizens, state and colonial governments and the harbour and ports authorities of Port Phillip Bay. Initially seen as a prize environmental asset, the creek has over the years brought vexing political and health problems to Frankston.

7 Kananook Crk, c1900, the sort of rural image which attracted tourism to the area (Jones, pg. 135)

Charles Robbins, a member of the first British expedition to enter Port Phillip Bay, explored land alongside the creek and with Charles Grimes they supplied drinking water from the Kananook to the ship Cumberland anchored in the bay.1 Grimes' party went on to identify parts of the Carrum Swamp before sailing further around the Bay. As a natural landform the creek thus has close links with the initial European exploration of Victoria. And today it is still a key natural landform in the City, forcing a sharp turn in the coastal road from Melbourne and cutting off the section of Frankston known as Long Island.

During the later nineteenth century several schemes were drawn up through which the Carrum Swamp could be drained for farming and new water outlets were envisioned by which the Kananook Creek would no longer run as a free-flowing stream through Frankston. As a result of such engineering works the creek became a stagnant string of ponds in the twentieth century. With the growth of Frankston into a village and new farms on the Carrum Swamp the creek ceased, at least near its mouth to have the qualities which attracted Grimes and Robbins.

In 1928 the Argus reported a visit by the Premier Sir William McPherson to Frankston to inspect works at Kananook Creek. What was once a clear waterway "suitable for boating and fishing" had by then become "a dirty stagnant drain". The stench had become "abominable" and campers and visitors were driven away from Frankston shops and beach.2

Attempts at farming in the Carrum Swamp had resulted in engineering works draining swamp water into the Patterson River. The Kananook Creek, running through the township of Frankston collected household waste and some sewage and the creek level was often not high enough to take this out into the bay.3 Several efforts were made to undo damage caused by swamp drainage and by the end of the 1920s, the State Rivers and Water Supply had installed an electric pump to flush the creek at low tide.

This was one amongst several attempts to identify ways of restoring the creek to its former beauty and to remove the major health risk in Frankston. As early as 1886, councillors from the Shire of Frankston and Hastings were meeting with the Minister for Public Works to find a better drainage solution to the creek water.4 In 1897, the Minister of Public Works thought that flood gates at the mouth would solve drainage problems, banking water up so that it could be suddenly released.5

After one summer in which several holiday makers vowed to never return to Frankston unless the creek was cleaned, the Public Health Commission took up the dangers posed by the creek. The Ministry of Public Works had by then installed a centrifugal pump to discharge saltwater into the creek, taking water in from Seaford Pier.6 Evidently this failed to solve the problem and the following year the local paper complained about the threat, not only to local health, but also local business, since tourists would go to one of Victoria's other beaches.

Frankston councillors embarked on strenuous but often misguided efforts to improve the creek surrounds between the wars and after. In 1930 the Minister of Lands had to order the cessation of work between Kananook Creek and Seaford where the council had employed 35 men to clear ti-tree and level the ground for a boulevard, outraging the Department of Crown Lands. The creek-side land could not be alienated, claimed the Minister, "by the King himself."7 There were several moves to create a boulevard along the creek bank; in 1938, crown lands officers had to restrain council workers and some Frankston Councillors who had cut ti-tree and levelled land for a boulevard and in 1955 the MMBW Chief Planner Mr. Borrie, cooled council ardour for a scenic drive on the east (landward) bank of Kananook Creek.8

While beautification schemes were drawn up, begun and abandoned, a more imaginative attempt to solve drainage problems was introduced. This plan called for works and barriers so as to divert water from the Dandenong Creek into the Kananook Creek, one which doubtless would have produced a similar problem in the Dandenong Creek itself.9 At the same time the local boat owners were asking for a boat harbour in the creek.10

Along with an effort to attract more visitors after the Second World War, local residents and the council tried again to improve the flow of the creek and to make it a safe harbour for small boats. Yet despite their best efforts, the local paper continued to report at regular intervals that the creek was in a shocking state, giving off nauseous smells, full of thousands of dead fish and eels and remained stagnant unless flushed at least once a week.11 Frustrated by official confusion about what works were best to improve the creek, local fishermen continued removing boulders from the creek mouth to try and speed the flow of water and also to make an easier entrance at low tides.

In the 1950s the MMBW took over works along the creek banks and in 1956 the Board began to replace masonry around the creek mouth.12 By then it appeared to many local residents that the creek mouth was not important to the MMBW. They feared that a metropolitan body like the MMBW was not really attuned to local concerns and was more intent on promoting fishing and boating on the upper reaches of the creek. Along with the unpleasantness of stagnant water and difficulties in boat access from the sea, shopkeepers, holiday makers and nearby residents in the 1950s had to put up with rubbish strewn along the creek banks. As well, these creek banks were regularly reported as "crawling with rats".13

In 1957, fishermen, local sea scouts and others interested in the creek formed a Kananook Creek Improvement Association through which they continued with work around the creek mouth. Professional fishermen had complained that at high tide, even after works on the entrance, it was impossible to get a cabin boat under the footbridge at the mouth and others pointed out that a rescue boat could not get out into the bay at low tide.

Following more efforts by this local group, the PWD again took up the possibility of flooding and flushing the creek with elaborate plans to take water out via a new aqueduct at Seaford. This was to be combined with flood gates to bank up creek water at low tide and a new pumping plant near the northern end of Long Island.

In 1958 a special Parliamentary Committee asked for outlet culvert drains into Eel Race Drain, a tidal gate to Pattersons River and a new flushing system taking water into the bay near the Riviera Hotel.14 In June 1961 the new flushing scheme opened and council and state authorities set aside £20,000 for improvements to the banks of the creek. However local residents complained a few months later that the new scheme was "a complete flop" since the flood gates were not operating in a way which would back up water to the Eel Race outlets.15

In December the new gates were proclaimed as working "at last" and residents could look forward to a slow revival of the clear brook which attracted Grimes and Robbins more than a century and a half earlier. Today the creek, with its bridges and curving course, is one of the key environmental features of Frankston and the long history of engineering works and local efforts to clean the creek and make it a viable boating course together make up a major aspect of the environmental history of the Frankston waterfront. Timber footbridges near the northern end of Long Island and at the rear of Nepean Highway properties still conjure up some of the rural charm of Frankston which holiday-makers found so appealing many years ago.