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In 1908 Auckland City was the commercial hub for a small and remote provincial economy and cannot have supported more than modest, locally orientated enterprises. This paper argues that such a view is conditioned by a ‘landlubber's gaze’. By envisaging a seafarer alighting on the City's wharves from a 1908 steamship to encounter the city's commercial heart, it demonstrates that Queen Street opened to a maritime world where Auckland enterprises enjoyed extensive networks and markets. Indeed, Auckland's ‘floating world’ rivalled its ‘residential world’. Such an approach may force us to recast Auckland Province in archipelago and network terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]