Storyteller leaves gum digger tales

By BRIDGET CARTER

Roger Mulvay is the man behind the kauri museum at Matakohe, 46km southeast of Dargaville.

He looks after the photos, displays and kauri treasures and, as the museum's general manager, attends workshops and tourism meetings around New Zealand to ensure the museum stays one of the region's most visited attractions.

However, after 15 years of talking about life in the Kauri forests during the 19th century, Mr Mulvay will move next month to double the size of the House of Memories museum at the Scottish settlement of Waipu, 41km southeast of Whangarei.

The 50-year-old, originally from Wellington, says he applied for the kauri museum job because he wanted a change from his furniture-making business in Auckland.

He had a masters degree in zoology from Auckland and Wellington universities. However, he could not find work in that field and stumbled into furniture making.

Because he grew up with a bushman for a father, had an academic background and an appreciation for timber he was given the museum job.

Since 1986 he has shared his time between museum work and property developing with his wife Linda.

Mr Mulvay says he has put a lot of effort into marketing the museum and visitor numbers have climbed from 57,000 in 1986 to 90,000.

He also introduced a numbering system to recall everything about each exhibit.

One of the skills he picked up while working at the kauri museum is storytelling: "It is not my story I am telling - but I have a personal connection."

The museum, which opened in 1962 to celebrate 100 years of settlement in Kaipara, is run by a charitable trust, the 16-member Otamatea Kauri and Pioneer Museum board.

Mr Mulvay says the main appeal of the kauri museum is that it tells human stories.

The museum houses recreations of gum digger's huts, huge kauri-cutting Machines and other displays which show the primitive and often filthy conditions of the kauri bushmen.

Mr Mulvay says Maori, British colonial settlers and Dalmatians were the first gum diggers in New Zealand.

Diggers worked from Hamilton northwards to make money before the land was developed.

The gum was melted for varnish and waxes.

The first diggers were able to find gum on the ground. Later, they used spears to find gum in swamp, then used hooks to bring it to the surface.

The diggers also used spikes to clamber up kauri and collect the gum on the branches of the trees.

The kauri gum industry declined around 1940 when gum became scarce and other varnishes emerged.

Another display in the Matakohe museum shows the size of New Zealand kauri (they are the second-biggest trees in the world next to the giant redwood trees of California).

The largest kauri is Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest) in Northland's Waipoua forest.

It is 4.4 metres in diameter and 17.7 metres to the first branch.

Mr Mulvay believes museums are a sounding board for society and somewhere people can learn about themselves.

"What I am interested in now is how museums contribute to New Zealand identities."