Somebodies and Nobodies by Brian Turner

Author:Brian Turner [Brian Turner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775531593
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Mysteries of Fiordland

We didn’t always invade the Mackenzie Country, despite our love of the Ohau. ‘Parts of Fiordland have never been explored by man or beast,’ said Alf. ‘See, it’s here, on the map.’ He wapped his fingers on the sheet unfolded on the kitchen table showing the Fiordland National Park ‘and environs’.

‘Unexplored, got that?’ Alf knew he had me. ‘Not even by the Maoris. Mountains, bush, fiords, wapiti, moose; lakes and rivers. Trout, Atlantic salmon. Milford Sound and the “Greatest Walk in the World”. Real Tarzan country.’

It was all too much for me. ‘Let’s go there this Christmas,’ I begged.

‘You’ve forgotten a couple of things, Alf,’ said Mum. ‘Rain and sandflies.’

‘And mozzies,’ said Glenn, not wanting to be left out. ‘Brrzzz.’

Mum clipped his ear. ‘It’s not funny,’ she said.

What first drew our family west of Gore was ardent pursuit of trout. Today, Gore boasts a whopping sculpture of a brown trout, which dominates a small park close by the main street about 100 metres west of the bridge over the Mataura River. This magnificent and nobly kitsch object was mooted, then built around the time the local authority was spending tens of thousands of dollars opposing the Fish and Game Council’s application for a national water conservation order on the Mataura.

The statue was erected in the 1990s, when Gore was proclaiming itself ‘the brown trout capital of the world’. But in the 1950s, few had woken up to the fact that agriculture would, in some areas of Southland as with just about everywhere else, seriously damage rivers and streams to the detriment of wildlife, fisheries and, therefore, recreation. Then it was ignorance rather than a lack of consideration. Now it is obduracy and wittering about landowners’ rights rather than ignorance that is behind habitat destruction, where it still occurs. All of us prefer to talk of rights rather than obligations. My father used to joke that the further south and west you went from Dunedin, the more ‘inbreeding occurred. Just look,’ he said, ‘and listen to the way they talk.’

Mum shot back, ‘Don’t be silly, Alf. You’ll turn the boys into bigots.’

‘Why not, they’ll have to learn to conform sooner or later.’ Alf was eyeing me in particular. ‘And remember,’ he said to Mum, ‘Southlanders are odd, and so are Cantabs, come to think of it.’

Mum shook her head and said, ‘Odd? Take a look at yourself and some of your friends.’ Alf’s opinion of regional characteristics declared that Aucklanders were cocky, Cantabs — those that ran the province — a bit snooty, Southlanders very parochial, and so on. In our family we had difficulty accepting that there was such a thing as a uniform sense of New Zealand identity, except when — and then only perhaps — the All Blacks were playing.

For all the talk about the value and increased amount of choice available to New Zealanders, if you want to get on, it is necessary to scratch backs. A little bit of judicious ingratiation and puffery doesn’t go amiss in God’s Own.

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