Innisfail

Innisfail, a rural township, is 70 km south of Cairns. It is at the junction of the North and South Johnstone Rivers, about 4 km from the ocean, in the Johnstone Shire. Innisfail has long been dependent on migrant and indentured labour, from South Sea Islanders (then known as Kanakas) in the late nineteenth century to Italians in the twentieth century. With an economy based primarily on sugar and bananas, it has often suffered massive cyclone damage, especially in 1918 and 2006. It owes its art deco buildings to the rebuilding after the 1918 cyclone.