On the trip over, I needed something to read. Picking a book for a flight, especially a long flight, requires something of a different spirit than one's usual pick. I sure felt like I was on the verge of an adventure ... so I guess my eye gravitated to a section on fictional explorations. I quickly picked up, "The Voyage of the Narwhal (1855-1856)" by Andrea Barrett (W.W. Norton, 1998). From the backcover I knew I had found what I wanted: fiction, but fiction done well, which to me means "with historical backing." I wasn't disappointed. I was rivoted from the start, loving the main characters Erasmus, Alexandria, and Zeke. The story chronicles a fateful mid-nineteenth-century Artic voyage written through the eyes of the unassuming ship's naturalist. With an especially nice touch, Barrett prefaces each chapter with quotes from historical explorers, naturalists, and scientists of old, including: William Scoresby, "The Polar Ice" (1815), Henry David Thoreau, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" (1849), and Louis Agassiz and A.A. Gould, "Principles of Zoology" (1851). I won't spoil the fun by sharing even part of the story line, but I will say that I enjoyed the book so much that I refused to finish it for three days. I mulled over various ways I might end such a story, including a scene where the Esquimaux native Annie plunges a bone knife into the ambitious and heartless explorer Zeke. Finally, frustrated over another read that I won't bore you with, I finished "The Voyage of the Narhwal". (sigh) .... It is always bitter sweet to finish a good read. During your next plane ride or before your next adventure, I highly recommend this book.

"Nothing in the short history of white men in Australia can match those physical changes. The recent clearing of extensive forest, the building of a million miles of fences, the making of railways and roads and artificial lakes -- none of these changes which dominate the modern history of Australia can be compared with the ancient rising of the seas, the shaping of thousands of new harbours, the swamping of scores of tribal territories and the wiping out of the evidence of the aboriginal life once lived on those drowned lands." (p14) Triumph of The Nomads - A History of Ancient Australia (revised edition) by Geoffrey Blainey, Macmillan Co. of Australia (1975, 1982). "The first Australians came across the stepping stones from south-east Asia during an epoch when the level of the ocean was lower. The sea-straits were narrow but the voyages were courageous. The slow eastward movement of these peoples was one of the great events in the history of man" (p15) "often seen Australia through the British telescope" Cook 1770, first settlement 1788, some evidence that Chinese were in Austalia a half century before Columbus reached North America, 15th century the Ming Admiral, Cheng Ho, made a series of long voyages, Timor was known to Chinese in 15th century for its white sandalwood, by 16th century, Portuguese and Dutch fought for control of the trade of sandelwood and beeswax; by 17th century and probably much earlier, Indonesian fishermen came to fish for the "sea-slug known as trepang or beche-de-mer" (p248)" "But on the east coast the white sails of he English ships (the sails of doom) were a symbol of a gale which in the following hundred years would slowly cross the continent, blowing out the flames of countless camp-fires, covering with drift-sand the grinding stones and fishing nets, silencing the sounds of hundreds of langugages, and stripping the ancient aboriginal names from nearly every valley and headland." (p254)

The Australian author Sally Morgan has written a wonderful story, "My Place" (Henry Holt & Co, 1988) ) of her journey of discovering her Aboriginal roots, of discovering "her place" as an Aboriginal woman. Based on her own life and the life of her mother and full-blood Aboriginal grandmother, Morgan provides an insider's view of her grandmother's experiences and fears of living in an anti-Aboriginal culture. Unable to put away the fear of her treatment from her early life while a servant for a rich white Australian family in north-western Australia, Morgan's grandmother hides the fact that her daughter is a half-caste, a child of the white landowner. Instead, she tells them, "You are Indian". The grandmother's only daughter and grandchildren are raised through the mid- and late-20th century believing their "dark complexion" comes from Indian (India) family roots. In her quest to "find the truth", Sally Morgan wrenches your heart with her story of all that she learns and all that she uncovers that she will never learn. This is a sad read in many ways, but Morgan does a wonderful job sharing life's complex issues with the lighter side of a life well-lived. Her grandmother is the hero ... even if very few really understand that is so. In many ways, I sense the story could have been written by a granddaughter of a North American Native American from the northeastern United States. Perhaps that story is for another day....? I recommend this book for those looking for an insider's view of one journey to discover what it meant to be Aboriginal in the Australia of yesterday and what it means even today.

The local Wollongong City Library recently featured and introduced me to Miles Franklin, a classic Australian woman writer from the early 20th century. I've just finished her first work: My Brilliant Career? (1901). (The publisher took off the question mark in the title, but Miles always wished it had remained). My Brilliant Career is a first person account of Mile's early life as the young Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin from the grazing property at Talbingo to her early twenties where she finds herself back working on the family farm. The work is a vivid portrayal of the hardship of life in Australia at the turn of the century but a stirring yarn of the "Aussie spirit". The writing is filled with the spirit of a woman who refused her grandmother's definition of a "woman" and as one to be damned to be caught in the life of her own mother who was married to her alcoholic father as they struggled to keep a scraggling dairy farm running in the drought-striken, dust-laden land. The themes are many and rich in this work and I'll leave it to the interested reader to discover the honest, almost tragic, but strong truth that flows throughout this work. Franklin is also known for her work in the early Australian feminist movement and she later published under the pseudonym of "Brent of Bin Bin" to avoid the discrimination against woman writer's of this time.

Kings in Grass Castles by Mary Durak (1959). Following the penetration of the Great Dividing Range in the early 1820s Australia had a rapid westward push. This book describes the dreams, struggle, successes, and failures of Patsy Durak (grandfather of the author) and his growing family. Durak represents the classic stockman or drover. Undeterred by the extremes of the bush, dangerous give and take with local aboriginals, drought, and financial uncertainty, Durak sets up a "station" in central Queensland at Thylungra, raising and moving cattle to and fro, searching for water and attempting to keep "the mob" (of cattle) alive until the final drive to market. Following near complete financial ruin during the Australian depression near the turn of the century, Durak heads west, across the Northern Territory and across the border into Western Australia where he and his sons set up a new station. The story is captivating, almost too hard to believe that folks could carry on in such conditions. But they all loved the land and outdoors and being together. It ends sadly as Mary Durak clearly describes the dejection of her grandfather as his sons no longer seek or listen to his advice. Like most places on earth, in the Australian bush, life moves on, generations change, and our elders shake their heads.

"'Cattle Kings' ye call us, then we are Kings in grass castles that may be blown away upon a puff of wind …"
Patrick Durack 1878 in response to a newspaper correspondent complaining of the big landholders.

This is a long read. I strongly recommend the illustrated version as it contains wonderful prints of the Australian bush and outback. As I mentioned above, it is a sad ending, but still this wonderfully researched account of early life in the colonization and settlement of Australia is on my highly recommended list. (Thanks to my new Irish-Aussi friend, Les, for his recommendation).