Waipu

Waipu was settled as a Scottish colony in the mid-1800s. The community has made a conscious effort to retain its cultural identity as a Scottish community. You've probably seen the phrase, "Céad míle fáilte" . That's Irish Gaelic. In Scottish Gaelic, "Ceud mìle fàilte".

In the 1820's a community of 900 left the Scottish Highlands and settled in Picton/Pictou, Nova Scotia. (Highland Clearances) This community was led by a 'charismatic' Presbyterian minister, Norman McLeod. The community thrived for a while, but by the 1840's they became tired of miserable Nova Scotia climate - cold, rainy, and grey, compounded by crop failures. There were also some issues with the locals' moral standards. This is the first time I had ever encountered a description of Canadians as being morally lax. I guess the Anglicans and Catholics were just too rambunctious for the Calvinist McLeod, who became known for his public denunciations of wayward parishioners. "He was attentive to every aspect of the lives of his followers, particularly in matters of religion and morals, and did not hesitate to castigate even his most intimate friends for offences which were often of a trivial nature."

"never had a day of fun in his whole life"

They built two ships, the 'Margaret' and the 'Highland Lass' and set out for the South Pacific in 1852. After a brief stay in Adelaide, they finally established Waipu in 1854, in the "winterless north". McLeod was 71 at the time. Almost unimaginable - being 71 and deciding to completely uproot your community, to get on a boat for four months & to start a new colony on the other side of the planet. He may not have been all that much fun, but you gotta give him props for what he accomplished. The fact that over 150 years later, there is still a community on that spot that cherishes its cultural heritage is testament to his character.

There were storm clouds rolling in the afternoon I spent in the town. So, I did not use the film camera because all the light was over towards blues & greys.

My second stay in Waipu was over the Easter weekend. The town had a community market on Saturday morning, complete with bagpipes.

(click images for video)

I think the guy with the big drum was fixin to have a heart attack.

The town has a nice centre dedicated to its Scottish heritage:

The Waipu Caledonian Society hosts the year's first Highland Games, on 1 January. It has been hosting them since 1871.

As a teenager, New Zealand writer Fiona Kidman lived for two years among the descendants of Norman McLeod’s followers at Waipū. Haunted by their stories, she later researched and wrote a novel which explores the lives of women in a moralistic community. The book of secrets (1987) won the fiction category of the New Zealand Book Awards in 1988. (source)

It was during my stay in Waipu that I came to understand Kiwis’ ability to live off the land. I stayed a little homestay/bed-and-breakfast. The homestay was a small farm next to a creek that also was very close to the beach. This creek was a tidal creek, fed from the ocean. When the tide was high, fish would be in the creek, as the tide went out, the fish should be caught in the net. By the end of the day, we had about six or seven fish, which went into the smoker overnight.

After breakfast and setting the nets, we went out to the beach. At the beach, we set out a long line. A long line is approximately a kilometer of fishing line, with swivels mounted at three-meter intervals. On each swivel is another fishing line, perhaps a meter in length, with a hook on the end. At the end of the long line is an anchor, and a buoy. Preparation of the long line consisted of unrolling approximately 10 to 15 hooks worth of line. We collected about 15 toatoa, which is a type of clam, from just underneath the water on the beach.

We cracked open the shells of the clams, and extracted the meat from inside the clam. This meat was then used to bait, the hooks. We then take a sea kayak out into the ocean, dragging the long line behind. The long line is stored on a reel, so one person stands on the beach as the line plays out. After the line was perhaps three quarters of a kilometer out into the ocean, we dropped the anchor, and made sure the buoy was pointed up.

We left the long line out in the ocean for about four or five hours. The result was four fish. My hosts said that this was about right for a 15 hooks out in the water.

Like the fish from the net, these fish also went into the smoker. Most of this fish became fish cakes for lunch, and also for dinner, the following night.

There are also about 20 to 30 ducks and geese living on the farm.

Two of these ducks ended up having their necks wrung that the afternoon, and spent the night in the smoker. They ended up being the centerpiece of the next night's dinner.

A number of the vegetables that accompanied the duck and the fish came from the garden behind the house.

After a number of years of eating food that arrived in the house wrapped in plastic on a Styrofoam tray, or placed on a table in front of me by a waitress, it was a delightful and refreshing experience to eat food that had been brought in just that afternoon.

The food purchased in a supermarket, or in a restaurant is food that has had several steps of handling, or processing, in its path from its point of origin, to the table. This is very different from eating some fish that was caught just the previous afternoon, on a long line that was set out in the ocean. In addition to the fish, and the ducks we also had some toatoa as part of some of our dinner.

The toatoa were collected on the beach, but only from areas where they were under 10 cm of water. The toatoa were collected from the ocean floor, and immediately went into a bucket of sea water. My hosts comment was "never eat shellfish that's been up out of the air. It starts to rot immediately." These toatoa stayed in this bucket of salt water, until they were prepared for dinner.

The fish that were caught on long line were also stored in a bucket of seawater. They stayed in this bucket of seawater, until we got back to the house, at which point they were cleaned immediately. After the cleaning, they were packed in salt for a while and stored in the refrigerator.

After several hours in the refrigerator, packed in salt, the fish went into the smoker.

location map. Note the street names - Nova Scotia Drive, The Braigh, Connell Road, Argyle Street.