Approaching the top of the Waiatoto, a remote and difficult-to-access southern Te Tai Poutini West Coast valley, William Baker was rewarded with an excellent vantage point from which to paint the snowy inclines of Tititea Mount Aspiring. Tititea means ‘glistening peak’, and also refers to an important Waitaha rakatira. Following a familiar colonial pattern, the mountain was renamed in 1857 by Otago Province chief surveyor J. T. Thomson. The word ‘aspiring’ was chosen in response to the mountain’s skyward grandeur.

Waitaha ~ tribal group that occupied much of Te Waipounamu South Island before they were displaced by Kāti Māmoe

rakatira ~ person of high rank, chief, leader