Beansprout and the possums

Robert "Beansprout" Long left the rat race in 1980 at the age of 25 and occupied an abandoned miners' shack at the mouth of the Gorge River. Gorge River is a two day hike [43km] South of Haast on the underpopulated West coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It's further still to the Milford Track which served as The Boy's intro to his Kiwi Year in 2005.  A few years later Catherine Stewart threw her cap at him and then there were three four humans living there off-grid. With two tots, twice yearly supply treks took five days rather than two and reduced the adults' carrying capacity. Who'd have kids?? A fit young teen or 20-something can yomp along the bouldery beach in 6-7 hours.

I've just finished ear-booking The Boy from Gorge River, which is Christian "Beansproutson" Long's report on growing up as Lordling of the Sandflies Austrosimulium ungulatum. He flew the nest in his teens to get some schooling and see the world and has lived a very adventurous life in locations yet more extremely isolated [mushing huskies in Norway during Coronarama; crewing a yacht through the NW passage from NYC to Nome, AK; communicating with Russians, Americans and penguins Aptenodytes forsteri in Antarctica] than Gorge River. Like our own children, who all left home before they could vote, Beansprout's two kids come home on the regular and they bring back their learned experience of the outside world: forcing their hippie-adjacent vegetarian parents to kill a few deer and get satellite broadband.

[aside: 20 years ago we were w a a a y behind the curve on our internet connexion. The Boy came home from New Zealand and was trying to help the crumblies get with the program. One of his techie pals in Dublin cut him short "Just how remote are your folks? Can they see the sky?" before explaining that satellite-to-home was not substantially different from satellite from Dublin to Bethesda, MD and it wasn't 100x the cost of copper.]

The common brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula [R, looking cuddly] was introduced from Australia in the 1850s in a cunning plan to supply bush-meat and fur. It turned out to be an ecological and economic disaster: possums are ① a far more effective vector for bovine TB than was ever the case for Irish badgers Meles meles ② as relentless omnivores they cause a fatal biodiversity reduction on NZ-native bird eggs/chicks and trees.

Young Chris spoke to the helicopter deer-hunters who flew along the coast blazing away at large mammals for meat and money. The idea was planted that the chap could kill possums and pluck their fur, bundle it up and sell it up the coast. Possum hair shafts are hollow, have high insulation value, and are organic. He sold his first few bales of possum fur and bought a rifle which made it easier to knock possums out of the trees they were depredating in the virgin forest. Whole possum skins, being harder to obtain, carry a premium better than fur, and soon mother and son were making possum-skin hats, scarfs, throws, and other chicerie. The possum carcasses are buried in the veg garden and help produce enormous beets and cabbage as they are recycled below ground.

The Boy from Gorge River is okay. The true-life adventure stories romp along. Too many of them are apparently the X-est whatever in my whole life; which gets a bit tiresome from repetition. Believe me, from the vantage of 70, you'll do sketchier, crueller and stupider whatevers in due course.