Chatham Islands

Words and photos: Juliette Sivertsen
Design: Paul Slater

In the Chatham Islands, a pub chat with the local cop includes debating

The general consensus is the left leg, in case you're wondering. Best to keep both your arms and limp around with a wooden leg.

It's not the first and definitely not the last conversation I have with people about 'whiteys' during my time in the Chathams. Everyone knows the story of the resident who lost an arm to a great white, everyone knows about the 'near misses' that take place.

But the shark tales say less about the actual predators and more about the hardy nature and resilience of the residents that live there. There are limited flights to the mainland each week, there's no mobile phone network, no high-speed internet, electricity is run by diesel generators, and everything costs about three to four times more than the rest of New Zealand due to practically everything needing to be freighted over from the mainland.

You have to be tough to survive on the Chathams, content with a slower pace of life, grateful for nature's blessings, and resourceful with a generous dose of pioneering spirit.

Just like the old days of rural New Zealand.

A quick geography and history lesson for you.

Most New Zealanders are aware of the Chatham Islands, but few know the exact location, and who lives there. The archipelago is about 800km east of Christchurch, making them New Zealand's most easterly region. Situated in the latitude known as the 'Roaring Forties', weather conditions change rapidly.

It's made up of 11 islands, although only two are inhabited - Chatham Island and Pitt Island. There are only about 650 people who live there - fewer than 40 of them live on Pitt.

Chatham Islanders are made up of three cultural groupings - the Moriori, whose ancestors founded the islands, Europeans and Māori. The Moriori name for the island is Rekohu, but was renamed Chatham after Lieutenant Broughton's ship, the HMS Chatham. The Māori name for the island is Wharekauri.

Chatham Islanders refer to the mainland as "New Zealand" as if it's a separate country. And while mainlanders are known as Kiwis, Chatham Islanders call themselves Wekas, after the bolshy native bird seen all over Rekohu.

In fact, the weka is so common in the Chatham Islands, it's not even a protected species there, and can be hunted and eaten - much to the horror of most mainland New Zealanders. According to those who've feasted on weka, it has a gamey taste, but not quite as strong as duck.

Fishing and farming are the main industries. And now tourism is on the rise too as Covid travel restrictions push New Zealanders to discover their own backyard.

Day One in the Chatham Islands and I learn a quick lesson - idle hands will not be tolerated.

I'm travelling with the islands' tourism manager, who needs to stop at the Air Chathams cargo hold to pick up a bunch of boxes filled with the latest tourism brochures. Sitting in the front seat of the car, I peer over my shoulder out the back to the woman helping put the boxes in the boot.

She looks at me. I smile at her.

I've been told. I quickly jump out of the car and lend a hand, carrying twice as many boxes to prove my willingness to help.

The following night at the pub, she spots me and joins me at my table. Her name is Irene and she's in good spirits, and delights in telling others how she scolded me the previous day. It's in a friendly, few-wines-down, joking-but-definitely-not-joking manner. We share a laugh together.

she trails off.

I laugh nervously but she brings her glass of wine up to mine for a clink and a smirk.

Empty beach, after empty beach.

Wind-flattened tussock frames each stretch of coastline and volcanic cones pop up out of the background as if someone's plonked an upside-down ice cream on some bare land. Trees and vegetation all slant to one side because of the wind and Ake Ake trees grow sideways along the ground.

There never seem to be any footprints in the sand, apart from those made by cheeky weka or a wild cat.

The townships seem sleepy for the most part. But the signs of human life are revealed in the countless cray pots, fishing nets and old buoys on the shore and on the side of nearly every road, a mark of the last true fishing community of New Zealand.

I plan to meet fisherman Vince Dix at his father Murray's house in Wharekauri.

Murray boils the kettle on the coal range. I haven't seen a working coal range in a house in 20 years and within a couple of days in the Chatham Islands I've seen at least two.

A black cat is curled up in a cardboard box in front of it; its body looking decidedly lifeless. The cat's name is Baldrick and he's 20 years old and I can't help but think he has a cunning plan like his namesake.

"Still alive, puss?" Murray asks.

The cat doesn't move and my heart sinks a little bit. Murray gives the box a kick, and the cat opens a sleepy eye before perking up and looking around. I breathe a sigh of relief I haven't just walked in on a family bereavement.

"I used to have another one called Blackadder," Murray says. I fear Blackadder's mate Baldrick might not be far off joining him.

Murray makes me a cup of tea while we wait for Vince to join us.

Fishing can be a touchy subject in the Chatham Islands. It's one of the things that makes the archipelago famous, especially its blue cod, but the high profile comes with a risk - that the resource will be depleted and future generations of islanders will miss out on this crucial food source.

Everyone I speak to on the island wants visitors to respect the ocean, to the point where some are even reluctant to promote fishing at all, even though commercial fishing is one of the key industries.

Locals seem to be doing what they can to promote sustainable fishing that's good for the island residents, their futures, and what's good for the ocean.

Vince runs Chatham Island Charters. A commercial fisherman, he has spent the better part of his life at sea, enduring all sorts of marine conditions for the job.

"Summertime's nice. Winter time is just plain right miserable," he says. "It's cold, windy, choppy, no fun at all. Roll on summer. Summer's beautiful, we'll be out there just down to a T-shirt. It's a great life."

Vince bought a fishing boat a few years ago for commercial purposes, but it's better as a recreational charter boat. He's decided to further increase the catch restrictions for blue cod on his charters, but says there's such an abundance of fish in the sea, guests are never disappointed.

"They're quite surprised at how easy it is to catch a fish. They drop the lines in and within a minute or two they're already hauling them in. So we make them throw most of them, about 90 per cent of them, back in the sea and just catch the big ones."

The legal size for blue cod is 33cm, but on his boat, they up it to 45cm. Legally, each person can take 15, but Vince further limits it to just six, saying 15 is still too high. "Most people don't want to go too hard; they're quite happy just to get themselves a feed to take home."

Vince says one of the most challenging parts of doing business on the Chathams, is spending a lot of time and money waiting for items to be freighted over by plane or by boat, which comes in every fortnight.

"Half the time you spend waiting for things. Especially for parts for your boat. You order it in, if it misses the plane it can take another couple of weeks and half the time if it gets here it's the wrong piece and you've gotta send it back and wait again."

Or the ship breaks down, which is what happens while I'm in the Chathams. Vince says often mainlanders just don't understand the pace of life there.

A street sign near the main Chatham Island township of Waitangi points to three necessities of an eventful, well-lived life: Bottle Store, Catholic Church, Hospital - in that exact order. The three buildings are next to each other, on the aptly named Hospital Rd.

The 'store' is really a garage, situated down a driveway belonging to Philippa Ingram. It's a humble shop but with a big claim: it proudly states to be the "first bottle store to see the sun and moon rise in the whole wide world."

The iconic street sign on the main road to Waitangi.

The iconic street sign on the main road to Waitangi.

Ingram's been in the Chatham Islands for 34 years, running the bottle shop for 21 years.

She initially came here from Wellington on a six month secondment as a marine radio operator.

"When I got off the plane, I thought I'd come home," she says. "I fell in love with the place. I'd been looking for a place like this all over the world and found it here in New Zealand."

As the local liquor seller, she knows everyone's preferred poison. The most popular beverages of choice for islanders? Whisky, bourbon and beer.

If there's ever a time that reveals the strength of a community, it is in death.

Floyd Prendeville manages the pub at Hotel Chatham, the only licensed watering hole in town. Floyd teases me about my manicured nails, shares the juiciest yarns and describes things as 'freaky deaky' followed by a wicked laugh.

I sit down with a wine and some fish and chips one night to try and get an idea - an unfiltered version - of life on the Chathams. We chat about the best spots to go diving, the time he got slapped by the tail of a great white shark, tales about his early life in the local motorbike club - 44 South MC - and the drinking culture that used to exist in this remote outcrop of New Zealand.

Blue cod fish and chips.

Blue cod fish and chips.

"When they use the terminology wild wild west - that's what it was like," he says.

The drinking culture has changed in recent years - for the better - but there's still one time when people let go. And that's after a burial.

When a Chatham Islander dies, the whole island knows about it. If the body is being flown back from the mainland, Air Chathams will fly low over the township, over the deceased's house, and do a loop around the island in their honour. Other residents will willingly give up their seat on the plane to allow grieving family and friends to fly.

A wind-sculpted Ake Ake tree growing sideways.

A wind-sculpted Ake Ake tree growing sideways.

"This is something really cool and this is something that shows a bonding strength with the islanders," Floyd says, explaining that all the men get together to dig the grave in the morning. "Basically the whole island will shut down, businesses will close, nobody will go fishing, nobody will go diving, if they're shearing that day shearing will be cancelled."

After the burial there's a ritual that takes place, no matter who the deceased is, known as the 'washing of the shovels' - where they find fresh, running water to wash anything associated with the burial.

"During which time, there will be every concoction of alcohol spirit you could imagine and it is shot straight from the bottle. No glasses, it's just swig, swig, swig, so if some poor bastard's got the flu, we're all gonna get the flu."

And like any good wake, that's when the real stories come out, away from the formalities. A chance to celebrate the life of the deceased - the good, the bad, and the downright atrocious.

Helen Bint points to her slug gun, which is resting up against a wall next to an old Singer sewing machine and a table full of toys and dolls.

"It's as good as a .22," the 69-year-old says as she reclines in an old floral armchair in front of the coal range, her two dogs and five cats in tow. The water in the kettle has boiled, marked by the pipi shell she puts inside, which rattles in the bubbling water to indicate it's ready.

Helen leases an historic stone cottage which has been lovingly restored over recent years. She has no mains electricity or water, no internet and cooks on the coal range, but it has a wonderful homeliness that she believes is missing in many people's lives. The cottage is about a 20-30 minute walk from the main road through a paddock, which can get too boggy to travel across after heavy rain, so at times she is cut off.

Like any rural setting, possums are a frequent pest, so Helen shoots them herself, then plucks the fur to give to a local teenage boy who collects and sells it. One night last year, her dogs started going a bit mad thanks to a furry midnight visitor, so Helen rolled out of bed and grabbed the gun, eyes half shut.

"I was as sleepy as anything but I make an effort to get them [the possums]. But I could only see its ears and it's hard to shoot. So after the fifth shot, I shot the side of the house, and I thought, 'Oh it's time to go back to bed'."

The next morning, a visitor to her cottage pointed out the dead and bullet-ridden animal next to the water tank and Helen was relieved she'd got the bugger.

I try to imagine a life on Chatham Islands. Waking up to such a wild and ever-changing landscape every day. Some people love the isolation - the more remote and off-grid, the better. That's why so many Chatham Islanders return here after a life 'overseas' on the mainland, or why mainland New Zealanders are drawn to building a new life on this outcrop.

But also I think about how much I'd have to give up to move there. And how do you cope when things go wrong?

And things do go wrong. Like the time she accidentally started cooking sausages in diesel oil instead of cooking oil. She didn't realise her mistake until she started to hear a crackle and a bang from the frypan.

"I thought - what the hell? And I could smell diesel, and I thought, shit, I've tipped diesel in," she casually explains. But the sausages weren't going to go to waste. You don't waste anything on the Chathams. "I washed them under the tap about 10 times, then tasted one, and I couldn't taste diesel so I put them back on with proper cooking oil and carried on cooking them and ate them."

Helen loves gingham and anything 'cottagey' and has spent years sourcing odd bits of furniture and toys and other bits and bobs for the cottage. The interior is full of floral armchairs and mismatched throws and cushions; the walls are covered in photos of everyone from family members to a young Elisabeth Taylor to Newstalk ZB radio host Bruce Russell.

Like most people living in the Chathams, she's tough, resilient and can make something out of nothing.

"There's something satisfying in the old pioneering ways that's still relevant for now. If there was a big catastrophe and we got cut off from New Zealand, I'd still survive because you're used to making something out of nothing. And there's something really satisfying about that."

GETTING THERE
Air Chathams flies to Chatham Islands/Tuuta Airport from Auckland and Christchurch weekly and from Wellington twice a week.
airchathams.co.nz
STAYING THERE
Hotel Chatham can arrange air travel, transfers, tours and accommodation
hotelchatham.co.nz
DETAILS
chathamislands.co.nz