FROM THE EDITOR

I was contacted recently by someone who said they had read with interest that Hobart had been named a UNESCO City of Literature, but that they had not understand what this meant. It was an a ha moment. I realised that I, too, had read the splashy headlines, felt celebratory and self-congratulatory not a little smug – but that I had pretty, much no idea of what it meant, what it offered, and what, if anything, was expected of Hobart in return for the literary laurel leaf.

In other words, I knew little of the background, the context, of this announcement. I had seen nothing of the fine print.

The person who contacted me was Emanda Percival, and she was rather more than a merely a puzzled Tasmanian who happens to live in Iceland. She has journalistic capability, a strong writing background and, she said, a desire to do some research and turn questions into answers. This was an offer I could not refuse, and the result is the clear and informative feature article explaining Hobart’s new glittery literary status.

About 20 years ago, a bloke contacted environmental authorities in Tasmania and told them that alien weeds were infesting the state’s south-west wilderness, and something had to be done about it. The bloke knew what he was talking about – he is an environmental scientist – but the authorities said they knew about it too, and that nothing could be done. 
 
The worst of the alien weed invaders is called sea spurge. It first invaded Western Australia and South Australia about a hundred years ago, probably arriving in ship ballast water. It quickly spread beyond control, and is now present across the entire southern coastline of mainland Australia as well as much of Tasmania. 
 
But it has been pretty much eradicated from our south-west wilderness, because the bloke who ran into bureaucratic rebuttal 20 years ago organised his own army of volunteers and fought back against the invader. And won. 
 
His name is Dr Jon Marsden-Smedley. Helen Gjone, a proud weed warrior in his army, tells the story.
 
Weed warriors in the wilderness may meet another army fiercely determined to clean up the environment, the plastics warriors. There will be no conflict. As Bert Spinks tell us in this issue, the aims of both these groups correspond with an ancient tradition, what the First Tasmanians thought of as “care for country”.

FROM THE EDITOR: I just did an astonishing thing: in the caption for the cover image for this issue, I made the claim that Rob Shaw is “building a Tasmanian legacy that will one day rival that of Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis”. This claim will shock people. It has shocked me! Truchanas and Dombrovskis are fabled photographers, artistic deities whose contribution to Tasmanian wilderness understanding and conservation deserves to be enshrined in ballads composed by angels. 

So I have had to sit myself down and take a deep breath and ask myself if I’m overdoing the Irish component of my breakfast coffee. 

And I came to this conclusion: Rob Shaw, Craig Searle and Ray van Engen, three hiking friends whose photographs grace the The Abels column written by Shaw and which has been a feature of Forty South Tasmania since Issue 96, are collectively building a legacy of Tasmanian wilderness images that rivals in quality that of Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis. If you want to argue, have a long look at the cover of this issue. I think Olegas and Peter would approve.

FROM THE EDITOR: I would like to make this issue of Forty South Tasmania a celebration of two things: Tasmania and Don Defenderfer. 

Don Defenderfer is a prolific writer. Among many other achievements, his writing has been published in three volumes of poetry and two further volumes of collected essays and poems, and his work has appeared in newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times and The Australian. His elegant, informed and intelligent reflections on life, environment and things Tasmanian are regularly featured, also, in this magazine, and it is with no apology that, in this issue, I offer you three more short literary masterpieces by this most gracious writer.

It is probably unfair to say that true appreciation of Tasmania means true understanding of that somewhat intangible thing, island life. Clean air, relaxed lifestyle, accessibility to wilderness and epicurean excellence are, individually or collectively, more than enough to attract and retain Tasmanians. But we often hear about “island life” being a factor, in both the physical and philosophically sense, in the Tasmanian experience. One way, perhaps, to appreciate this, is to have a long acquaintance with two islands. Mark Heyward has done just that.

From the Editor: Every three months, as the work of editing and designing a new issue of this magazine nears its end, I have the task of choosing a story order. It isn’t always easy: sometimes two or more informed and informative articles, compellingly and often gracefully written, about things essentially Tasmanian sit atop the content list and refuse to be separated. I can say with certainly, however, that I have never had a content list like the one I’m offering you, dear reader, in this issue. Any one of half a dozen articles could lead the magazine, and as I write this I am still scratching my head as to which one actually will. 

If I vote with my heart, it will be the fourth (and final, which has me weeping) instalment of the massive Hilary Burden and Peter Marmion co-operative series of essays on the Tasmanian south-west. 

If I vote with my head, it will be Sonia Strong’s brilliantly evocative exploration of Flinders Island, and what the Furneaux group means to her.

And if I vote with my stomach, which is always tempting, it will be Julia Matusik’s a la Julia column.

Daniel Livings (who took the cover and Parting Shot photographs) and his partner Emily were young Sydney-siders when they first visited Tasmania in 2016. According to Daniel, it was love at first sight, bite, yarn, tarn and swim.  On their return to Sydney, their friends became “fed up” with the subject of Tasmania, with the looks that overcame Daniel and Emily as they talked about it, and their “giddy” behaviour as the young couple discussed their dream of buying a vacant block and creating something worlds apart from “the congestion that is any Sydney road”.  The next few years saw them beg, borrow, steal (people’s time with their “silly ideas”), sleep in cars and, ultimately, find their dream block. It was overgrown with gorse, had no dwelling and no planning or building approval, and was generally a logistical nightmare. But to Daniel and Emily it “was and remains a paradise”. They have since deployed goats for the gorse, planted gardens and fruit trees, and built a home and a photography business. They have fulfilled their dream.  

This is an unusual offering from the editor’s desk, but when it tells a story with Tasmania so close to its warm, beating heart, what better offering is there?

FROM THE EDITOR: I like foodies. This is partly because I am something of a foodie myself, although perhaps leaning to the gourmand rather than the gourmet. And I am a amateur when it comes to real foodies, who can speak in soufflé-soft sentences of the gathering and processing of disparate ingredients to create miracles. Such people live in a world of the sensory supernatural and the rest of us can only wonder, like watching a great magician, how they do it. 

Forty South has had its own resident foodie oracle in Fiona Stocker for several years, and what a privilege it has been to publish her à la Fiona column. From this issue, she has been joined by another high priestess of premium cuisine, Julia Matusik, who recently moved from Brisbane to Geeveston, where she and her husband bought an 1890s farm cottage. 

So please welcome à la Julia as she joins à la Fiona. You are in for a feast.

Just how much of what is essentially Tasmanian can two people put into one article? The connection between Peter Marmion and the mighty, wild south-west, and especially Port Davey, is a story 50 years in the making, and is so deep and layered that words are inadequate and the best way to tell the story is through Marmion’s extraordinary photographs. 

At least, that would be the case without the word-skill of Hilary Burden. She went with Peter Marmion into the wilderness, joined by award-winning landscape artist Jennifer Riddle, another with a long connection to the south-west. To say this was a meeting of minds and hearts is accurate, but it does no more than introduce what happened in their time together. 

Hilary Burden came away from Port Davey, and decided that she needed four articles to do the experience justice. Th first of those articles, accompanied by a collection of Peter Marmion photographs, leads this issue, and it is fair to say that, in preparing this article for publication, I was staggered at just how much that is essentially Tasmanian two people can put into one article. 

And then I read Don Defenderfer’s piece which, from a slightly different perspective, is just as essentially Tasmanian. 

As this issue of Forty South Tasmania went to the printer, Hilary Burden travelled overseas, “escaping” Covid restrictions for the first time in three years. She told me that part of her was excited, but part of her felt guilty. She was feeling homesick even before leaving. 

That’s what I call essentially Tasmanian.  

Hobart has a floating suburb. Like Brigadoon, you can wake up one morning and it’s not there. But there always comes another morning when it’s back, adding its orange signature to a Tasmanian sunrise. For a long time, it was known as Aurora Australis, an icebreaker and Antarctic research ship which over 30 years became such an accepted part of the Hobart landscape that one felt it was there even when it was away breaking ice. 

And then they announced that Hobart’s floating suburb was to be taken away. Past her use by date, they said. It was to be replaced, but with what? Who is comfortable with losing an old friend? 

Aurora Australis was ours just as certainly as Antarctica is part of Tasmania. She was quintessentially Tasmanian: a rugged survivor of the southern seas, a real orange toughy. Her replacement has much to do to take her place in our landscape and in our hearts. 
But she’s made a great start. She is orange. And her name, Nuyina, decided by school children, is the palawa kani word for the southern lights. Aurora Australis is Latin for the southern lights. That’s a smile-worthy narrative. 

Give her time, Hobart’s new floating suburb. And fast-track your acquaintance with Rob Fiddyment’s introduction in this issue.

When Don Defenderfer heads into the Tasmanian bush, he finds calmness and connection. When he writes about it for Forty South, I find calmness and connection. His piece in this issue (p8), entitled simply wukalina, is as beautiful as anything I have ever read about this land. 

Back in less-calming urban areas, life in Tasmanian was very different just 30 years ago, and especially for school-leavers. Life in Tasmania in the early 1990s was about “fierce working class pride, kids leaving school after Grade 10 without anybody batting an eyelid, wealth and poverty rubbing shoulders, and people dying early after living tough lives”. They are the words of one of those school-leavers, one who “like many of my generation … left Tasmania for the fabled mainland”. Dr Samara McPhedran has achieved much since joining that exodus, but as she explains in this absorbing piece, something of the essence of Tasmania has travelled with her (p16).


Someone whose opinion I respect greatly recently told me, “You have a lot of seriously talented people writing for Forty South Tasmania.” I’d love to square my shoulders and preen a little and blow loudly on my trumpet for a while, but that would be something of a sham because it has been so since long before I became editor. In fact, it has been so since before Forty South was born almost 27 years ago. It has been so since the first issue of Forty South’s predecessor, Leatherwood, in 1991. With that publication was born the culture of good writing that has followed ever since. An article about something Tasmanian has never been enough. We are, and always have been, about good writing.   
 
There is, of course, a third string to our bow: to good Tasmanian stories and good writing, we must add good photography. Tasmania is photogenic, which helps, and we have a long history of superb photographers in this state. Tony Robertson is one, and he features in this issue of Forty South for the first time. Stanley’s extraordinary The Nut is photogenic too, but we have never seen anyone capture it the way Robertson has. After agonising over which of his beautiful images to use for over cover shot, I gave up and decided to use two of them, on the cover and for Parting shot. 
 
Another talented Tasmanian photographer is Craig Searle. He is a dedicated hiker who regularly joins Rob Shaw in ticking another Abel off their list, and his photographs have appeared regularly over many Forty South issues helping illustrate Rob Shaw’s column about those climbs. In this issue, however, Craig Searle shows us that he is a writer, and a natural story teller, as well. His lead article contains mystery, adventure and a love of wilderness. 
 
We have had some seriously talented writers, photographers and tellers of Tasmanian tales over the years, but Craig Searle may be our first true all-rounder.

FROM THE EDITOR: Many years ago, new to Tasmania and barely able to spell Launceston let alone Freycinet or D’Entrecasteaux, I was contacted by an amateur science nerd named Fraser Johnston who wanted to write an article about a fish that lives in the murk at the bottom of the River Derwent, and gets around by walking rather than swimming. The spotted handfish, Johnston said, is one of the rarest fish in the world. I was hooked, no pun intended, and the story appeared in Issue 70. Recently I was contacted by a professional science nerd named Jemina Stuart-Smith who wanted to write an article about the spotted handfish’s cousin, the red handfish. To say the species is rare is ridiculously understated. The article begins, “A few handfuls of fish sitting in bags filled with seawater represent almost half the world’s known population. We have spent the past year carefully raising them from wild-collected eggs.” 

History, as is so often the case, gives us some more compelling reading in this issue. Carol Freeman’s evocative telling of the story of the Ragged School, which was part institution and part sanctuary for the poor children of early Hobart Town, is both eye-opening and heart-warming.  And David Faber brings the cold light of veracity to one of those dark stories of Tasmania’s early colonial years that history has for a long time tried to remember differently.  

Finally, I was reminded while editing and preparing this issue that Hobart’s Mercury newspaper once described Forty South as “a lifestyle magazine with brains”. The memory was prompted by the realisation that seven people with a PhD contributed to this magazine. That’s a lot of doctors, and intelligence, in the house. If I say so myself.

William Blake said, “Great things are done, when men and mountains meet; This is  not done by jostling in the street.” To me, beaches are the realm of romance, and forests the place to find tranquillity. I find mountains much harder to define. If I had to find one word, I would choose “awesome”, in its truest sense. 

Welcome to what I will term the “Mountain Issue” of Forty South, featuring three articles about the awesomeness of mountains. Rob Shaw and Jonno Blood go climbing, and find fresh ways to describe the awe that this inspires. Elaine Mead is climbing a different mountain: explaining, from a psychologist’s point of view why it is that great deeds are done, great thoughts are thought, when men and women reach for the clouds. It’s awesome reading.

What do Dublin, Toronto and Hobart have in common? The answer is major sculptural installations by Rowan Gillespie. This is an international story with Tasmania as a major component, and we are delighted to have renowned historian Dr Dianne Snowden telling it for us. 

Chris Champion, Editor


In big and small newspapers, magazines and periodicals around the world, there occurs for every issue a critical meeting of editorial minds to decide story order. What will lead Page 1? How will every other candidate story of the day be prioritised? What won’t make it for want of space?
 
The meeting of editorial minds for Forty South is a meeting of one, and it takes the form of a few minutes for each issue looking at the story list and choosing the order they will appear in the magazine. Logic plays a part, when for example two similar-themed articles naturally run one after the other, and occasionally subjectivity can influence the process (but don’t tell anyone I told you that). 
 
Mostly, however, it’s purely a function of editorial experience, and it’s a deeply satisfying function. Having spent weeks and sometimes months assessing, developing, editing – living with – the feature articles that will be published, you can get very attached to them. Choosing the story order for them is personal and intimate, like arranging the seating for a large family Christmas lunch.
 
At the head of the table for this issue is Terry Mulhern’s tale of the secret life within the secret tunnels of kunanyi. Who knew? Luckily, Terry got out safely, living to tell the tale. It’s a great tale.
 
All our writers are stars, but shining particularly brightly this issue is Hilary Burden. She has become the first person to write three articles in one issue of Forty South. Blame me if you like, but I have yet to find a reason to say no to Hilary. 
 
Another star of this issue of the magazine is this issue of the magazine. It’s number 100. It has been published uninterrupted four times a year for 25 years. That’s 100 editorial meetings to prioritise more than 1,000 stories about Tasmania and Tasmanians. That’s a story in itself. 
 
I look forward to the next 100. 


There are just two criteria for Forty South content: good writing and Tasmanian themes. The theme can be anything - from Don Defenderfer's soaring spirits as he communes with nature, to Rob Shaw's soaring hiking boots as he conquers another Abel, to Hilary Burden's soaring prose as she tells stories of people who have known Tasmania longer than most - as long as it is essentially Tasmanian, about who and what we are, and have been, and might become.

We have had some quirky themes over the years, but for the almost 25 years that this magazine has been produced, a handful of themes have dominated: history, the environment, travel and tourism, culture, epicure and, of course, people. Tasmania is a place rich in depth and diversity in these things, and good stories about each have flowed naturally to our pages. 

The launch of the Forty South portal in August has seen newcomers to the theme list, however, and none more than science and multiculturalism. We have always had science stories - and always will as long as Fraser Johnston keeps knocking on our door - but the web portal, which is so suited to these types of Tasmanian stories, has seen new science writers contributing articles in this most interesting and informative of categories. Katherine Johnson joined us in the previous issue writing about giant kelp, and Keith Corbett joins us this issue writing about geology. 

And in this issue we are joined by Stephanie Jack. To meet her is to meet a giant, flashing billboard advertising all that is good about multiculturalism. It's a theme that I have always considered a pillar of modern Australia. Stephanie Jack is a beautiful writer who will bring to Forty South regular stories about familiar faces with unfamiliar backgrounds. 


A considerable part of Issue 98 can be described in words never before associated with Forty South Tasmania: self-serving, egotistical, puffed up … 

What do we have to be narcissistic about? 

The answer is fortysouth.com.au. We have been taking Tasmanian to the world for almost 25 years via a glossy magazine published once every three months. Our new website is an extension of the magazine: same content, same quality, same values. And it’s a beautiful website to look at, so you could even saw it’s equally glossy. 

But it has one massive difference: it isn’t constrained by page numbers, freight times and the costs of physical publishing. This magazine is not going away. Like a lot of Tasmania-lovers, I like my physical Forty South, served with a comfy chair and a cup of coffee. If a three-month wait for your next dose of Forty South is a little too long, however, if you think you’d like a daily dose to go with your three-monthly dose, have a look at fortysouth.com.au – and watch us grow.

The website has been nine months in the making and we are so proud of what we have achieved, and the work which went into making it, that this issue of the magazine is something of a celebration. We are singing our own praises, and we hope you will, this once, tolerate the flag-waving and champagne-popping.

I promise that from Issue 99 all smugness will be back in the drawer and it will be Tasmanian business as usual. 

Hang on, then there’s Issue 100 to follow. Better replenish the champagne stocks … 

Our magazine has changed. In this year of dramatic change, when our lives have been turned upside down, or, more accurately, outside in; when change has become the new normal and, for a while at least, it was hard to remember what the old normal felt like; our cosmetic adjustment seems a little thing. 

When we started planning it, however, back at the start of 2020, before the world was attacked by pandemic-shaped change, it was a big thing for us. We wanted the magazine to match our new and massively changed web site – to be launched in August – and that’s why have a new cover design, new-look internal pages and a new name, Forty South.

Mind you, I don’t expect the last of those to cause any issues. People always called us Forty South anyway. Forty South Tasmania was just too much of a mouthful.

Introducing change is rarely a comfortable journey, however, and people react differently to it. As Shirley Conran once observed, “Women want men to change, but they don’t. Men want women to stay the same, but they don’t.” 

As you read this issue of the magazine, I hope you find that we haven’t really changed, that we’re just an old friend with a makeover. We’ve changed our makeup and put on a fancy new coat, but underneath these things Forty South will remain a provider of intelligent, informative and well-written stories about Tasmania and Tasmanians. 

That will never change.

Things are about to change at Forty South publishing. Let me say immediately that everything is positive. The magazine itself is not changing, except for a cover design facelift and a small name change in keeping with a company-wide branding unification exercise. 

Forty South Tasmania is losing nothing except its name, which is changing to Forty South. What it is gaining is a big brother. This is the major change, the seismic shift: hugely exciting and hugely intimidating in terms of scope, potential, and work required to implement it. We are about to build a major Tasmanian content portal on a high-end digital publishing platform. 

The move became possible after Forty South Publishing successfully applied for a grant under the Australian Government’s Regional and Small Publishers Innovation Fund, administered by ACMA. The purpose of the grant is to support regional publishers to adapt to the digital age and compete in the evolving media environment.

Our new website will allow us to carry a great deal more content than we can in the pages of a quarterly magazine. It will be an online extension of the magazine, rather than a digital version of the magazine itself. It will be larger, but it will have the same values as the physical magazine: an essential place to go for anyone interested specifically in things Tasmanian, and generally in good writing and good photography delivered via informative and entertaining feature articles.

The web portal is now in the development phase with the hope of going live early in the second half of this year, a month or two after publication of the Winter issue, Number 97, of the magazine, an issue which will introduce our glossy new look. 

And if you would like to be part of history, we are running a competition to find a cover image for that new-look Issue 97. Any high-resolution image, taken on a smartphone or digital camera, with a Tasmanian theme will be considered. The winner will receive $500. See p8 for more details.

One of the joys of being the publisher of a glossy magazine is that you get to meet good photographers. Some people look at a photographer and see a person carrying a  camera. When magazine editors look at a photographer they see a magician, someone who understands the insubstantial world of light and shadow and knows how to weave them into reality. 

The closest thing Tasmania 40°South has to a staff photographer is Pen Tayler. She’s not on our staff because she and her camera weave magic around subjects often beyond the geographical and thematic boundaries of this magazine. When we need a photographer, however, she’s the first person we turn to.

We turned to her when we decided to publish a book of fine words (written by Bert Spinks) and images of Tasmanian towns. We turned to her when we decided to create a 2020 calendar based on that book. The results were magical, and both book and calendar are now available through the 40S Bookshop at fortysouth.com.au.

This issue, then, is something of a celebration of the art and magic of Pen Tayler. Her work is featured on the cover, in Parting Shot and in a special Portfolio featuring Flinders Island. Thank you, Pen Tayler. 

Not for the first time, landscape is the main theme of an issue of Tasmania 40°South. It is the first time, however, that we have had three distinct perspectives on the Arcadian environment we call home. 
Max Müller, the 19th century British-German philologist, said, “While the river of life glides along smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank seems to change.” When I read this issue’s lead story, "Connection" by Peter Grant, I see his life as a river and I see his family as his personal changing landscape. In this beautiful piece, Grant writes about introducing a third generation of his family to Tasmanian landscapes.  
Jacques Lecoq, the 20th century French mime artist and teacher, said, “By walking a long time in an environment, landscapes begin to influence your mood. As landscapes change, your feelings change.” Steve Roden has walked a long time in the Tasmanian landscape, but it was initially difficult walking. Roden was already an experienced photographer when he moved from the UK to Tasmania in 1976, but he was unprepared by what happened next. His "Portfolio" in this issue shows us his beautiful landscapes. His words show us what a difference a hemisphere makes.
Ansel Adams, the early 20th century American photographer, said, “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.” These are words which will resonate with Matt Palmer, the young Tasmanian photographer who in August was named 2019 Australian Professional Photographer of the Year. For him, it wasn’t the disappointment of a poor technical performance, but the supreme disappointment of seeing so much of the Tasmanian landscape burn in the devastating fires of the 2018-19 summer. How hard must it have been for a lover of landscape, and a passionate environmentalist, to photograph its blackened corpse? Palmer said, “Landscape photographers have a responsibility to tell stories of the changing world.” (see "Parting Shot")

Lake Pedder in south-western Tasmania was formed during the last Ice Age. It was extraordinarily beautiful. It lay in a large, flat valley, the source of the meandering Serpentine River, surrounded by mountain ranges. It covered nine square kilometres and was ringed on its eastern shore by a white quartzite beach and sand dunes. 

Until the 1960s only indigenous Tasmanians and, later, avid bushwalkers had ventured into this rugged wilderness, but this changed when protection provided by its national park status, granted in 1955, was revoked by the Tasmanian government in 1967. 

Lake Pedder, which had survived for about 10,000 years, was destroyed in 1972 in the interests of hydro-electricity generation. Now a group of determined Tasmanians wants to reverse history and restore one of Tasmania’s crown jewels.

Is such a thing even possible? Christine Milne, former leader of The Greens party in Australia, is now a leader of the Restore Pedder mission. She explains how and why.

Beautiful Tasmania may be a theme for this issue: we have Terry Mulhern writing about the seminal works of Colonial artist William Buelow Gould, Mulhern again writing about old growth timber, Fiona Stocker getting whimsical about Cataract Gorge, and the beautiful mind and words of Don Defenderfer doing what he does uniquely well, meandering through the spirit of Tasmania.


It is serendipitous, surely, when you are presented with a feature story, a poem and a history writing prize winner that are all on the same subject. The subject is the Cascades Female Factory, that grim relic of a time less tolerant, of a society less humane. The feature story is by Fiona Stocker who, on her first visit to the convict prison, had “no inkling of what to expect within the factory’s towering sandstone walls”. Stocker, who did not grow up in Tasmania, had no inkling of the brutality of the story she discovered that day. She was so confronted by what she saw that she determined to return, when she had more time and did not have a family in tow, to look more deeply. Then she used her formidable writing skills to try to describe what she saw, and felt. The result is confronting. It is a story as essentially Tasmanian as anything we have ever published. It is a beautiful piece of writing.

Penny Lane has known and understood the Cascades Female factory narrative most of her life. When this award-winning writer submitted a poem just days after I had read Fiona Stocker’s piece, and asked modestly if I thought it usable in Tasmania 40°South, the answer was never in doubt.

Paige Gleeson is also an award-winning writer, despite being young. She is studying history at the University of Tasmania, and submitted a piece of research about a famous “incident” at the Cascades Female Factory. Her piece, researched like a true historian and written like a true storyteller, won the inaugural Forty South Van Diemen History Prize, and completes our Cascades Female Factory trilogy.


Issue 91 of Tasmania 40°South is big on books. Clarissa Horwood’s About Books column offers, as usual, sage words about written words. Our New Books section, in which we show you what the book publishing side of the Forty South business has been up to, takes up four pages, reflecting a prolonged growth spurt. It’s a busy business, and growing.
 
Perhaps most exciting, however, is one book from Forty South due to be released early this month, December 2018. It is “Tasmanian Towns: A Journey through Time”.
 
I’ve never used this space to advertise Forty South books – I’d lose readers quickly if I did – but I am so excited about this one that I can’t resist sharing it with you.
 
Small towns can be special, and especially in Tasmania. Think of Strahan, Queenstown, Stanley, Richmond, Evandale … you see what I mean. The idea for a book on some of these towns (we chose 12 in the end) was born almost two years ago, but with the idea came the realisation that we needed a special writer to tell the stories of these towns, and a special photographer to show you what sometimes not even words can describe.
 
The first people we approached, Bert Spinks and Pen Tayler, said yes, at which we did a little dance and popped a large cork. Almost two years later, Bert and Pen, along with a third virtuoso artist, graphic designer Kent Whitmore, have delivered a finished product which will add enormously to the Tasmanian narrative. 
 
One of Pen Tayler’s images from the book graces the front cover of this issue. I will leave you with some words by Bert Spinks, from the Introduction to the book: “I believe that our towns will be all the more interesting for the deep-map perspective we will try to offer, especially because – as I keep insisting – Tasmania is truly one of the most interesting places on Earth.”

Tasmania is a natural breeding ground for bird stories as we have shown in the recent past with features by Grace Heathcote on the orange-bellied parrot (Operation orange, Issue 89), and by Bronwyn Scanlon with the story of Montgomery the Tasmanian masked owl (Issue 87). Scanlon is with us again in this issue, with a beautifully written introspective about Tasmanian birdlife and her love for it. And joining her is Henry Johnston, who brings introspection and a strong dash of Aboriginal culture to his piece about the birds, and history, of Bruny Island.

Tasmanian wine is a subject worthy of a regular column in this magazine, proving the old adage that the way to an editor’s heart is through his taste buds. I have over the past few years tried to write about wine in these pages myself, but I am delighted to announce that we now have a real wine columnist. He is James Fouché, a South African “wine and coffee snob” who is also an accomplished crime novelist. As you read this, he is in the process of migrating, with his wife and three children, to Australia. His first column is a brief history of wine in Tasmania, partly perhaps to introduce himself to the subject. Henceforth, he will be profiling Tasmanian wines, and the people who make them. 

Chris Champion, Editor


Antarctica, as those of us who live here know, is part of Tasmania. We allow other countries to undertake scientific research there, we allow South American countries to send tourist ships there, and we share the Antarctic supply business with New Zealand, but psychologically it’s ours no less than the Tarkine is ours. Tasmanians understand wilderness. 
This is why I have for some time wanted to offer an Antarctic-themed issue of Tasmania 40°South. The time has arrived.
If I were to make a film of the history of Antarctica, I would ask Steve Roden to play one of the Heroic Age explorers. Roden has the presence, the bearing and the English accent (albeit a little modulated by a few decades of Tasmanian influence) to make a splendid Ernest Shackleton. He also has first-hand knowledge of Antarctica – he has just been there on a South American cruise ship. Our Portfolio from pXX presents the story of, and a selection of images, from that trip. 
If I were to make an expedition to the South Pole, I would ask Chris Wilson to be my guide. Wilson is part-Tasmanian (he was born and raised here), and part Antarctician (having spent great chunks of his life there through his work). He is also a photographer, and winner of the 2016 Australian Antarctic Festival Photography Competition. (If you, too, are part-Antarctician, and handy with a camera, you can enter the 2018 competition, which has a first prize of $5,000, via antarcticfestival.com.au). Wilson won the 2016 prize with the stunning photograph on p4, and Tasmania 40°South will return to Antarctica, via more of Wilson’s photography, in the next issue.  
I would also invite James Dryburgh and the man he writes about in this issue, Fabián Martínez Siccardi, on our great southern expedition, because in the long cold nights of Antarctica, you need great story tellers.
Chris Champion, Editor


You can read a lot of words by Grace Heathcote in this issue – she has written the first two features in the magazine. Both are about the Tasmanian devil, but the stories couldn’t be more different. Both may elicit a tear, but for opposite reasons. Most of us have heard about devil facial tumour disease, but few of us know the extent of the scientific work being carried on to study and combat it. Grace Heathcote knows – she spent 10 days in the Cradle Mountain snow helping disease ecologist Dr Rodrigo Hamede on one of the DFTS field trips he has been making four times a year since 2006. 
On that trip, Heathcote saw devils at their most vulnerable. Most of us know them better as confident and happy in idyllic sanctuary environments. But did you know the extent to which they can bond with humans? Our second devil story is a special story indeed.

I‘m not sure whether Donald Knowler is a newspaperman who writes about birds, or a bird watcher and writer who supports himself with a newspaper job, but it his journalistic skills which show through in a book he has written called Riding the Devil’s Highway. Tasmania is the roadkill capital of the world. The book explains why, in thoroughly researched and compellingly written style, and we are happy to publish, in Knowler’s own words, this synopsis of the book.

Peter Grant and Steve Roden are two of Tasmania’s most inveterate bush walkers, but in this issue we show a different side of both, one riding an electric bicycle from Hobart to Devonport – the long way, via the east coast – and one with camera in hand showing his considerable photographic skills for this issue’s Portfolio.

No issue of Tasmania 40°South would be complete without a look into history, and we have two great stories. Jonno Blood takes a rail journey on a ghost train and Fiona Stocker dredges up a story from the Tamar mud. 



When Europeans started arriving in Tasmania a little over 200 years ago, they found it already populated by people who had been here possibly 40,000 years, possibly 60,000 years. Think of it as a few thousand generations, living, socialising, and passing down stories of deeds and happenings, of a way of life in a particularly comfortable and picturesque corner of the world.
 
Few of those early European arrivals thought of the Aboriginal inhabitants that way. Instead, they closed the book on Aboriginal history and wrote their own. History from the point of view of the victor is not good history, as important Tasmanian voices today such as Henry Reynolds and Nick Brodie will tell you, and their efforts to tell the truth, as disgraceful and painful as it sometimes is, are signs of more enlightened times.
 
Some things can not be undone, however, including the loss of so much Tasmanian Aboriginal history. When the early Europeans waved their superior weapons and waged war on the indigenous population, they didn’t just kill people, they killed a culture, and they killed their stories.
 
This magazine tries to tell Tasmanian stories from all places and all times, but we can’t, because so much knowledge as been lost. Who were the heroes of this land 20,000 years ago? Who were the leaders and thinkers? What did their children do to differentiate themselves from their parents’ generation, as all children have done before and since?
 
We would love to tell such Tasmanian stories, but we can’t. The book is closed. The stories are dead.
 
Perhaps this is why people like Geoff King and James Dryburgh see enormous importance in events such as the return of land to its traditional owners, events which have real consequences in the present and symbolic consequences for the past. Geoff King and the property Kings Run are the subjects of this story, and James Dryburgh is the writer. This is a Tasmanian story for the ages, and one we are proud to tell.

Perhaps the greatest pleasure of being a grumpy old editor is recognising and fostering good writers. It’s tempting, on those occasions when you meet talented lovers of words learning the craft of communication, to discard the grumpiness and sing their praises (out of tune but grammatically perfect).

Grumpiness went out the window early in the preparation cycle of this issue when I was contacted by a young woman named Grace Heathcote. She was not an established writer, she said, but she had hopes of becoming one. And she had a story to tell, she said, about a penguin.

I am not going to say there was a tear in my eye at the end of Grace Heathcote’s story, but it was close. Judge for yourself. The story of Miss Simpson starts on p14. Have tissues handy.

Talking of established writers, Nick Brodie is quickly become a national treasure. He is one of the younger voices in the righting of the wrongs of historical interpretation, especially in Tasmania, but it is a powerful voice being increasingly heard. You don’t get far as a historian if you’re not a good writer. In this issue he has written 1,500 words about a Hobart street corner, and there is not a dull word in it. p30.

Bert Spinks, Don Defenderfer, James Dryburgh and Peter Grant have become four of the most consistent contributors to this magazine, and I am beginning to think of them as “my special guys”. Each likes to get away, to replace the pace of urban existence with the special reality of the state’s quiet places. It is not too fanciful to say that they commune with the soul of Tasmania. And then they come back and write about it in Tasmania 40°South.

More and more, these days, I forget to be grumpy.

“Oh my god,” I thought, lapsing into the language of my teenaged daughter, “this issue is full of nature stories.” “LOL,” I thought, proving my fluency in techspeak, “Tasmania is full of nature, so why shouldn’t this magazine be full of nature also?”

Dr Carol Freeman knows a great deal about Tasmanian nature, and has written compellingly about it in Tasmania 40°South issues past. Dr Jules Freeman, Dr Carol’s son, is a molecular geneticist who studies blue gums (Eucalyptus globulus). When they get together to prepare a feature story on this most Tasmanian of trees, one doesn’t hesitate to publish it.

Jess Feehely is Principal Lawyer at EDO Tasmania. EDO stands for Environmental Defenders Office, an organisation which knows the law and will use it to the letter to protect nature. Its story goes back a long way in Tasmania, as does its list of achievements, and the story makes fascinating reading.

Jonathan Esling is another name synonymous with Tasmanian nature. The big picture is that he’s a photographer with a variety of interests, including close-up images of some of the little things in our wilderness. It’s a highly-technical, highly-skilled form of photography, and we are delighted to present in this issue Esling’s story and some of his images.

We are also delighted to present a new column in this issue, and it is, naturally, about nature. Peter Grant is a writer and founder of the Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize. His Tasmania 40°South column will carry the same name, The Patch, as its subject – a 150-hectare patch of Tasmania immediately behind Peter Grant’s home on the slopes of kunanyi / Mt Wellington. If you think that sounds limiting, I can assure there is plenty for Peter Grant’s elegant prose to focus on because The Patch, like Tasmania, is full of nature.

Fire. Fifty years after the day which has become known as Black Tuesday, Tasmania still shudders at the memory.

It was February 7, 1967, and bushfires burned on 110 separate fronts that day, from Bothwell to Snug.

The worst of them was in Hobart, a national disaster in the suburbs of the state’s capital city.

Sixty-two lives were lost. A total of 1,293 homes, more than 1,700 other buildings, an estimated 62,000 farm animals, 80 bridges and about 1,500 cars and were also lost.

Fire. It raged again in January and February 2016, this time seemingly all over Tasmania due to random but prolific lightning strikes. No lives were lost, but property and infrastructure was widespread.

In this issue, we remember Black Tuesday and 2016 with two special features. Janette Smith retells the dramatic story of the Black Tuesday rescue of the citizens of Fern Tree, the Hobart suburb perched 400 metres up the slopes of Mount Wellington. It’s a story of fortitude and heroism – without which the Black Tuesday death count could have been considerably higher.

In the aftermath of the 2016 fires, as in 1967, came many stories of community – people helping people for no other reason than the existence of a need. Perhaps the strangest fund-raising effort was a group of recreational divers who got together for a dinner – on the ocean seabed. It was so successful it’s become an annual event. One of them, Jonno Blood, writes the story.

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Tasmania has been described as the world's best-kept secret, but it's not our fault - we have been telling the world about Tasmania for over 20 years. Forty South Tasmania  has been described as a lifestyle magazine with brains. It offers three things: interesting features about Australia's island state, good writing and stunning photography. The magazine is a household name in Tasmania, but also has many subscribers elsewhere - people who have visited this beautiful place and now read the magazine for a regular reminder of an extraordinary experience. Forty South Tasmania  offers feature stories, and stunning photography, about Tasmanian places and people, tourism, history and lifestyle, and regular columns on Tasmanian food, wine, arts and culture.

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Forty South Tasmania Magazine - Issue 111

Forty South Tasmania Magazine - Issue 111

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