Mount Heemskirk

Mount Heemskirk is a mountain in Western Tasmania, west of the West Coast Range. It has an elevation of above sea level. The closest town is Zeehan, about 14 kilometres away.

History

The indigenous Peerapper name for the mountain is recorded as Roeinrim or Traoota munatta.

On 24 November 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European explorer to sight and document the Heemskirk and West Coast Ranges. Tasman sailed his ships close to the coastal area which today encompasses the Southwest Conservation Area, south of Macquarie Harbour, but was unable to send a landing party ashore due to poor weather and did not make contact with any South West Tasmanian groups. In their circumnavigation of Tasmania between 1798 and 1799, George Bass and Matthew Flinders named the Heemskirk Ranges mountains Mount Heemskirk and Mount Zeehan after Tasman's ships, the warship Heemskerck and the fluyt Zeehaen in honour of Tasman's voyage of exploration. Although Dutch in origin, Bass and Flinder's Anglicised naming of Mount Heemskirk and Mount Zeehan created some of the oldest British place names in Tasmania.

The mountain and its surrounding high ground was also known as the Heemskirk mining area in the 1890s and the first decade of the 1900s.

After the success of mountain biking in Derby, several mountain bike trails opened on Mount Heemskirk in 2020.