Book recounts harsh history

Sheer dogged determination and a hardy disposition may no longer be necessary for surviving life in the Wakatipu, but a hundred and fifty years ago, it sure helped, says author Donald Offwood.

• Book extract 

Tomorrow evening at Lakes District Museum, Mr Offwood launches his latest book, Camerons of the Glen, a tall, but true story of the rugged Camerons who immigrated to Otago in the 1850s.

After wondering why they would leave their home in Scotland and emigrate, Mr Offwood found the answer lay in the grinding poverty there, which formed their tenacity in tackling Otago in the mid 1800s.

"You'd wonder how they ever survived the cold, miserable conditions here then. You'd wonder how any woman ever delivered a baby that survived.

"If this was good, it shows how bad it much have been where they came from. Only the hardiest survived."

His seventh book, and third in a series set in Otago, Camerons of the Glen was born out of a chance conversation with Charles Cameron, the grandson of the original Donald Cameron whose story features in the book.

Charles Cameron mentioned his background and, very importantly, that he had the original scrapbook and diaries from his grandfather's time at his station in Central Otago.

"After a wee read of his material, I suggested we do a book," Mr Offwood said.

The Cameron clan were some of the first and most important pioneers of Otago.

Born in 1835, and after first emigrating to Australia and farming in what became Penola, South Australia, with his uncles and brothers, Donald Cameron ventured to New Zealand in 1859, explored the Lake Wakatipu area and eventually took a lease on the Nokomai, the Nevis and the Staircase along the side of the Remarkables.

After registering his claim in Dunedin, he returned to Australia to ship his sheep to New Zealand, and, after they were quarantined near Bluff, drove them up to Nokomai.

Only 800 of the original 3500 made it to the first shearing, Mr Offwood added.

"Over time, Donald Cameron's father and remaining siblings joined him from Scotland and the clan took root."

Donald was the first chief of the clan in New Zealand and became a prominent leader of the Scottish community.

He was also a fluent speaker of Gaelic and loved his bagpipes, playing them each evening on the homestead, as if staking his claim to the world, Mr Offwood said.

When Donald Cameron died on New Year's Eve 1918, he was the only original runholder from the 1850s still on his run in the Otago and Southland area.

The family finally sold Glenfalloch in 1950, after 90 years.

Donald's story and that of the Cameron clan has been told as a factually correct novel, a writing style Mr Offwood prefers to use.

"Scots and Gaelic were spoken, rather than written, languages and like Maori, should be spoken, or written using dialogue," he explained.

"I can hear the words they would have used. I can hear the women saying, when they got off the ship in Dunedin and looked around, 'Well, we'd better get on with it'.

"That's the kind of people they were. I have huge admiration for them."

And their plight often elicits a tear of emotion from Mr Offwood as he tells their story.

However, tomorrow's launch will be a happy celebration about the story of the hardy Cameron clan and "perhaps a wee dram afterwards", he added.

Although he lives in Christchurch, Mr Offwood - a member of the Crawford clan, whose forebears arrived in Dunedin on the ship Philip Laing in 1848 - loves nothing better than a trip to the Wakatipu and the heart of the Otago pioneering country.

• Queenstown Times has three copies of Camerons of the Glen to give away. To enter the draw, email your name and contact details to news@queenstowntimes.co.nz or phone us on (03) 442-6157 by noon on Sunday, November 30.