Publications

Heritage New Zealand Magazine Magazine Request Winter 2008 Autumn 2008 Summer 2007 Spring 2007 Winter 2007 Autumn 2007 Summer 2006 Spring 2006 Winter 2006 Autumn 2006 Summer 2005 Spring 2005 Winter 2005 50th Anniversary commemorative issue Autumn 2005 Summer 2004 Spring 2004 Winter 2004 Autumn 2004 Summer 2003 Spring 2003 Winter 2003 Autumn 2003 Summer 2002 Spring 2002 NZ Historic Places Magazine May 2002 February 2002 November 2001 August 2001 May 2001 February 2001 November 2000 August 2000 May 2000 February 2000

From issue: Spring 2002

Cook Scholar takes Heritage Helm

by Jane Phare

She's an academic, an award-winning author and speaker, a Captain cook fan and Chairperson of the Historic Places Trust Board. Professor Dame Anne Salmond speaks with Jane Phare.

Dame Anne Salmond Photo: Sheena Haywood

Professor Dame Anne Salmond is making coffee in the kitchen of her Devonport villa on Auckland's North Shore, searching for a packet of biscotti and talking about Captain James Cook.

It's a combination this Cook scholar from Gisborne is quite comfortable with. She's unashamedly a fan, an academic groupie. She talks about Cook as though she knew him, and writes about him as though it's a never-ending story.

For Dame Anne, her quest to research and understand one of the world's greatest explorers, the impact of Polynesia on him during his three Pacific voyages, the mixing and meeting of Maori and European culture, is her life's work.

She brings that same level of commitment to the Historic Places Trust and her new role of chairing the board for the next three years. She has already served for a year on the board and is a past board member of Te Papa. She takes over from Dame Catherine Tizard, whom Dame Anne describes as "a wise woman" who helped to take the trust to a new level and ensured it a strong future. Dame Catherine steered the trust through a tumultuous period during which it fought back from dark times in its life, when funding was in doubt, major restructuring needed and the inevitably unsettling period of change affected everyone.

The Maori Heritage Unit and the trust's new regional offices were two of the great things that came out of that period of change, Dame Anne says.

She is optimistic about a new era of heritage awareness. New Zealand is sitting on enormous tourist potential in terms of its heritage, she says, but the process needs to be well managed. And New Zealanders need to acknowledge that visitors are interested in our past; that visitors, from young backpackers to the well-heeled, well-educated older tourist, want to understand the places they visit. "I have seen some brilliantly interpreted sites. Being on the site and hearing what happened is a most powerful experience. You can almost time travel if it's done well."

Dame Anne likes to think in terms of "heritage landscapes," favouring an exploration of an area rather than a specific route. She cites the Kerikeri Basin as part of a Northland landscape, bringing together the Stone Store, the Mission Station, the Kororipo Pa and the basin itself with a canoe harbour and voyaging site for Maori. "It would draw people to the north, a place crying out for economic development. You could create a network of sites, make people curious about Pompallier, the Treaty House, Clendon House."

The same could happen at Cook's landing site in Gisborne, a sore point in trust circles. The statue commemorating Cook's landing is cut off from the sea and hidden behind a mountain of sawdust caused by reclamation of the land and a timber yard operating on the foreshore.

"It's heart-rending to see it treated this way," Dame Anne says. "It shows a lack of vision and a lack of courage. Can you imagine Americans treating the Plymouth Rock the way we have treated Cook's landing place?"

Cook is an international figure in many countries, she says. New Zealand has the chance to link to a network of global sites in which Cook was involved. The trust could act as a catalyst to develop these sites with the Department of Conservation, iwi and hapu, local councils and community groups.

"These places are at risk often because people have not imagined what these sites can do for their community at a time when heritage tourism is growing rapidly.
New Zealand needs to take its heritage seriously, she says.

"In many ways we think we don't have an interesting history. Yet I am asked to talk about the relationship between Maori and European all over the world. Overseas the Treaty of Waitangi fascinates people. There are very few countries where an attempt was made to co-inhabit with two races."

Apart from developing heritage, saving heritage is another vital role for the Historic Places Trust. Funding for the trust continues to be an urgent issue, Dame Anne says. The demands on the trust's resources are increasing exponentially as a result of the Resource Management Act. "It has already stretched the trust's resources beyond a level which is reasonable. The volume of work is huge. We have just one legal person trying to fight all over the country with very limited resources. The other parties often have huge resources, so if New Zealand values its heritage we need to redress the balance."

Apart from her trust work, Dame Anne is Distinguished Professor of Maori Studies and Social Anthropology and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Equal Opportunity) at Auckland University. She has been awarded the DBE for services to New Zealand history and a CBE for services to literature and the Maori people. She has won literary awards and academic honours for her work on Maori life and cross-cultural history in New Zealand.

Dame Anne has published two books on Cook and just completed a third, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog - Captain Cook in the South Seas, funded by a Marsden research grant. The title is guaranteed to please book editors always looking for a catchy title, but it is in fact based on a true incident.

At the beginning of Cook's third great voyage in 1776, the one from which he was not to return, the crew took part in some "rough humour" in the form of a mock trial of a dog. The unfortunate dog, according to Dame Anne's research, nipped at the crew when they went ashore at Queen Charlotte Sound.

"They called it a cannibal and they held a trial. Then they cooked the dog and ate it. It was a charade to send a message to cannibals. They thought it was hilarious."
The crew were also, in their own way, sending a message to Cook that they thought he did not have the guts for utu to avenge Grass Cove, where, during Cook's second voyage, a number of his crew were killed and eaten in Queen Charlotte Sound.

The next project is a book called Contact! about the first 100 years of contact between Europeans and the cultures of Polynesia brought about by voyaging and exploration. And she has been invited to be an international contributing editor for a major project, compiling The Oxford Companion of Exploration.

Spare time is scarce but Dame Anne and her husband, conservation architect Jeremy Salmond, have a long-term dream. They've bought 81 hectares of hilly land, which includes an area of native trees known as Long Bush.
Now whenever they can get away the Salmonds head for Gisborne, swap academic and architectural life for gumboots and spades, and go out planting. They hope to establish a native arboretum featuring large groves of native trees each interspersed with 10 different varieties of flax.

When they get time, they'll build a house - and hopefully by then the large pile of sawdust overshadowing Cook's landing monument will be gone.

Jane Phare is Editor of Heritage New Zealand.