Past, present and future on GBI Adventures in Oral History Ferry at Port Fitzroy wharf, 1910 It all began when our dear 82-year-old friend Winnie, a fourth-generation islander, told us she’d love to write her memoirs. The fascinating story of her life and Charlie’s, told in her delightful, positive, heart-of-gold style, would be priceless, but it wouldn’t be easy for her, I thought – she never used a computer and her eyesight isn’t good at all. Instead of writing, I suggested, she could just talk into a recorder. And we left it at that, because even though they’re octogenarians, they never stop working on their enormous farm or tending to an endless stream of visitors, and she’d also said something like “when I have time”, and we all know what that means! Shortly afterwards a notice in the Barrier Bulletin announced an oral history training weekend, organised by the Great Barrier History Research Group. You can probably work out where this is going! Ro, I and nine others participated in nine hours of training with a professional oral historian and came home with a 78-page guide to oral history and interviewing, and a 24-page guide to using the recorder! As you can see there's a lot more to it than we could have imagined; in fact for every hour of recording there’s at least ten hours of preparation! The preparation includes research so the interviewer has a context to begin asking questions and a pre-interview meeting for sharing with the interviewee how the process works and what it’s all about, form-filling including permission and basic biographical information, and planning the logistics. After the interview, there’s careful back-up and storage of the recording and, most time consuming of all, listening to the interview as many times as it takes to create an abstract – a minute by minute summary of the topics, to enable future researchers to find information on specific topics, so they don’t have to listen to hours of recordings unnecessarily. It’s all done in accordance with the standards and procedures of the Oral History Society of New Zealand. This is what we got ourselves into!! We are very interested in meeting people and in the island’s past, and this seems a great way to both meet and learn, and to make a contribution to preserving some fascinating history for the future. We committed to doing four and see how it goes. We volunteered to take the recorder home first for practice with its features, menus, functions, displays, levels and everything else in the 24-page guide! Here are Jan and Murray Willis, two members of the History Group, collecting the recorder. They’re a lovely couple who’ve lived for more than 30 years in a beautiful home they built themselves in Whangaparapara. Murray’s a great joker and just about everything he says has me laughing. He’s also been a techie-sparky of the highest degree all those years, who can troubleshoot and fix just about anything. He was one of the first installers of solar power systems on the island, he's been a key driver of Aotea FM, and they both coordinate emergency services on the island. Jan has been a specialist nurse, both in Canada and New Zealand, often with the responsibilities of a doctor. The History Group plans to create a record of the island’s history for current and future generations, with a theme of what makes living on the Barrier unique. The recordings will be held by the group with copies at the Auckland Library for researchers and anyone interested, as well as played on Aotea FM. The oral history trainees generated a long list of potential interviewees and prioritised oldest first! Everyone chose those they’d like to interview. Our names are beside Winnie and Charlie, of course, as well as a most individualistic woman who lived across the road from our first rental here, and the first cousin of Tessa Whiteman of Golden Bay! He lives in a boat-access only Bay and tracking him down for an interview will ensure that we meet him at last! The History Group has a library of about 30 books, including two they published: Tales of Great Barrier Island and More Tales of Great Barrier Island, which are collections of contributed stories. So far we’ve only dipped into one of them, but the stories are real corkers that go straight to the source to bring the island’s history to life. We don’t recall hearing about an oral history project in Golden Bay. I hope people’s stories are being preserved there as well; it would be a real shame to lose them forever. Second arrival of the Queen of Sheba (as we call the moment Robina steps off the ferry) Yes, we had another talk-filled three days with our dear friend Robina, and we put her visit to very good use by organising a showing at the Barrier Social Club of SOS: Save Our Seeds, the third in a series of inspiring and informative films in her Localising Food project. Do you know about this comprehensive initiative to document all aspects of community food production throughout New Zealand, so that communities everywhere can adapt them for their own self-reliance and well-being? Save Our Seeds addresses the impact of industrialised food monopolies – loss of seed varieties, corporate control of our food and seeds, and all the rest of it, and why our food security is now reliant upon local community-scale seed systems. The film crew traveled throughout New Zealand to document inspirational grassroots seed saving and seed sharing initiatives – seed swaps, seed exchanges, seed libraries, seed banks and family seed businesses – that can be replicated and adapted anywhere. Themes underlying all these examples are that sharing seeds regenerates community, seeds carry cultural heritage, home seed saving is at the root of change, and seed sovereignty is vital for local food security and bioregional resilience. The showing is bearing fruit! There’s a lot of interest here in starting a seed library – for people to contribute seeds, take away seeds and grow them out to replenish the supply. One of the local board members said she’s “awesomely enthusiastic” about the idea. Caity offered to do a seed saving workshop in the right season.The coordinator of the Arts & Heritage Village offered to house the seed library there, as part of the island’s heritage, and she already contacted Crop Research, which was featured in the film, and received a big box of bean and seeds to get us started! People can contribute their own seeds and also harvest them from plants left to go to seed at the Community Gardens. I’ll let you know if the idea progresses from visualisation to actualisation! A screen shot from the SOS doco – a seed library in Nelson. Another doco in the Localising Food series is Growing Schools, which features New Zealand schools that are empowering children to be involved in transforming their school grounds into abundant food gardens and nature havens. www.earthcare-education.org www.localisingfood.com At swim time on Robina’s first full day here, we told her she didn’t have to join us! After all, it’s different for people who've made a gradual transition from summer to winter swimming conditions. “No” she said unhesitatingly, on what was the coldest day yet this year. "I’m going into determination mode!” She gamely followed us into the river, and into Blind Bay on the next. After our Blind Bay swim, we drove up north for a picnic at Okiwi Park, a walk around Okiwi Passion and a cup of tea with Gerald and Caity. As dusk fell on the way home I discovered that our house key wasn’t in its usual wee compartment – or anywhere else in the car, we found when we pulled over to search. When we got home, Robina risked her neck to climb a ladder and enter the spare bedroom head first. Fortunately a step ladder was directly under the window! If the front door is locked with a key, it can only be unlocked with a key, but, again very fortunately, she could unlock the back door. That was wonderful for sure, but without the key we had no access to the front deck! No locksmiths on the island either. The keys were on the loose somewhere on this 285 sq km island, but we figured they went astray at either Blind Bay, Okiwi Park and Okiwi Passion. We alerted Gerald and Caity, and we couldn’t wait to get to Blind Bay the next day. What relief and joy to find that a kind soul had placed them prominently upon a rock! A zillion thanks to our unsung hero! We’re still saying “Yay! We can go in and out the front door! Yay! We can use the deck!" Robina was probably glad that her flight was in the morning of the last day so she could gracefully avoid another cold-water session, though it turned out to be not as early as she thought! Halfway through the 30-minute flight, she and the other passengers were dismayed when the pilot announced that Auckland was enshrouded in fog and they had to return to Claris until it cleared, which was several hours later. Skies here were bright blue with not even a trace of mist, and we were oblivious to all of this until she emailed us the next day! Matariki While Robina waited for the all-clear at the airport, we were enjoying the annual performance of the play centre group and each of the local schools. Looking at the photos you can’t hear the singing or guitar, which really liven things up! The event had a lovely community feel and it was heartwarming to see the children so engaged in a multicultural event. Play Centre Mulberry Grove School Okiwi School Kaitoke School Everyone — every school kid on the island except those who were away. Others are home schooled or do correspondence. Dark Sky The Barrier is a sanctuary for many reasons, and now there’s one more. It’s official! Great Barrier Island has been certified an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, the third in the world and the second in New Zealand, after Aoraki/Mt. Cook National Park and the Mackenzie Basin. There are also Dark Sky Parks and Dark Sky Reserves, but “Sanctuary” status is the darkest of the dark. Because light pollution is unknown here, it’s said that we can see about 5000 stars on a clear night compared to 500 for Aucklanders, but how did anyone figure that out? "It's like an immense glow worm grotto,” the local board chairperson told Radio New Zealand. "On a moonlit night, you can nearly read a book outside. When the moon's not up, there's just no light at all.” A number of factors have converged here to preserve essentially all of the island's natural nighttime darkness: little development pressure, nearly 60 percent of the land is DOC nature reserve, and it’s 90 km from the mainland with no mains power and negligible outdoor lighting. Importantly too, the dark “nightscape" is an island icon that residents hold dear. Of course the Barrier’s dark sky designation doesn’t mean there are no other places in the world with skies as dark, just that the others haven’t applied! And perhaps those who are keeping it to themselves have a point. Many people here are perfectly happy with the sky as it is, plenty dark and not at risk of changing, and they’re not overjoyed with the certification! I don’t think everyone realised that the accolade comes with a long list of specific, stringent requirements for protecting the sky into the future. Some residents are taken aback that all of a sudden we’re being regulated by an organisation in Arizona. Others view it through either a dismayed or profit-driven lens. Though the application was made with the blessing of the local board after the usual notification and consultation, the initative was driven by people keen to place GBI more prominently on the tourism map. But what about all the star-blocking pollution crisscrossing the skies as the planes bring tourists over from places where they can barely see a star? I always thought “ecotourism” was an oxymoron, but this is the first we heard of “astrotourism”! Volunteer “Night Sky Ambassadors” are being fast-tracked in identifying celestial objects and the use of a telescope to meet the expected demand. For a taste of revelling in the commodification of the very stars above, see https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/watch-mean-great-barrier-kiwi-island-become-star-gazers-delight-new-dark-sky-sanctuary-recognition We shall see how it all pans out! Update on Golden Bay Cement Those in the know informed me that a pallet at Medlands is no mystery at all! The Golden Bay Cement Company is alive and well in Northland. But before anyone even wrote, I found that out for myself when to my surprise Radio New Zealand news had an item about "Golden Bay Cement in Whangarei,” which is now including ground-up tyres in its cement. Case closed! Interviews with islanders If you’d like to hear from some more or less prominent islanders about their impressions of life on the Barrier, check out http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/nz/92569454/what-its-like-to-live-off-the-grid-free-range-in-community-on-great-barrier-island To celebrate our 45th anniversary we made a wee pecan pie in a custard cup! Aotea FM presenter Blue invited Ro onto the show for a segment of Van Morrison songs. We used to have a few shows on Fresh FM, and Ro’s a natural! Sunbeams over mountains and wetland More captured beauty from Paul and Mary’s February visit Paul took the first three from a mountain bike on the Harataonga Track, which follows along and above the northern coast between Harataonga and Okiwi. A hidden beach and Rakitu Island Whangapoua Sandspit Hot Springs Track At the springs Paul and Mary’s host at Medlands, Vicky, stayed with them on a visit to the States and sent this photo at their home in Oakland, California. I titled my post “Past, present and future” – you’ve read about past and present, but what of the future? Tune in next month and you may find a surprise!
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