JUST OFF THE PRESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 35, 23 February 1940, Page 27

JUST OFF THE PRESS

Guide To The Latest Books

BACK TO NATURE WILDERNESS WIFE. By Kathrene Pinkerton. George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. 302 pp. Many of us would like to get away from the strain of the city and live an outdoor life, but few have the courage to make the break. Kathrene Pinkerton had the. decision made for her when sickness overtook her husband and he had to give up his newspaper work. In " Wilderness Wife" she tells where they went, how they lived, and what they achieved, in a two years’ exile in the Canadian woods, It wasn’t all " beer and skittles" either. To leave the comforts of a modern home for primitive household equipment, and to cope with the difficilties of a ‘winter in a climate where the temperature reaches 56 below zero, tries the nerves of any woman. But this was the least of Mrs. Pinkerton’s troubles. She helped to build their cabin, to go for stores by canoe in summer, and by dog sledge in winter. She ran a trap line, made a garden, helped her husband with work that few women would care to tackle, and most triumphant of all, reared a baby under abnormal conditions. For — the Pinkertons hadn’t money to start with. They had to live on the proceeds of a little fur-trapping and by selling articles" and photographs to distant newspapers. But if the life was tough it was pleasant. One day it would be an encounter with animals, the next a battle with a smoking chimney. And every day Mrs. Pinkerton had Bockitary, her adopted Indian cat, who seems too good to be true. The whole was a worth-while experience. They came away with regret at their departure; hardships forgotten in the remembrance of work done together; watching birds and animals in their natural habitat; living near Nature and becoming healthier» and wiser people than when they set out. A WILDERNESS TRIUMPH OLD WESTLAND. By E. Iveagh Lord. Whitcombe and Tombs Limited. 258 pp. Illustrated. 7/6 net. If not the naughty boy of the family of New Zealand provinces, Westland has been one of the wildest. It has also been the toughest and the kindest. The dense rain forest, giant peaks, glaciers, and, rivers infect West Coast people with a sympathy and a courage that enables them to face floods, isolation, and danger as matters of course. Mr. Lord has captured the spirit of his province and his people. Wisely he limits his story to the Maoris, the navigators, the inland explorers, the prospectors, and their colourful .sur--vivors; he has not touched on the period 1880 to 1940. It is in fact necessary to emphasise that this book is a story and not a history-a popular treatise rather than a _ reference work for students.

The illustrations are good, and many of them are published for the first time, One of them should however never have been’ published because it is not authentic-the portrait of Tasman on page 19. There is no known picture of: Abel Tasman, and any artist’s version is from imagination and not from fact. The Westland centennial organisation is to be congratulated on its enterprise in sponsoring Old Westland, a memorial that will last longer than stone. SHEEP AND GOLD THE SQUATTERS, by D. O. W. Hall; and GOLD, by Rena and Angus Ross. Numbers 7 and 8 of the New Zealand Government's Pictorial Surveys. 1/-. Under the now dated title of " The Squatters," Number Seven of the Centennial Surveys hides some of the most beautiful photographs so far printed in the "Making New Zealand" series. Here is the real New Zealand, it would be possible to say, if each succeeding publication had not already made it clear that in each one may be something better or different and still equally good. They are photographs of New Zealand sheep country-just clouds, grass, hills, sun, shadow, water, and sheep, caught. on to film by artists who have under-= stood more than usually the rare quality of light on these small islands. The letterpress, more of the work of D. O. W. Hall, is an unassuming summary of the grabbing, developing and final disrupting of New Zealand’s big pastoral estates. The bitterness of a century of political dissension is lost in Hall’s impartial historical summary. The squatters, he finds, were opportunists who could hardly be blamed for snatching at grand opportunities. They took their land as they could, and held it by right of hard work and keen wits as long as circumstances allowed thern, When they went, as they had to go ultimately, they "had contributed some~ thing of their own to the social life of the country." They based their claim "to something like privilege on work rather than passive ownership." The eighth of the series, "Gold," lacks some of the colour associated with tthe history it records. It does a necessary job. It tells when gold was found, how it was worked. When it mentions the Shotover it prints a picture of the Shotover. When it describes sluicing, or dredging, or panning, it has a picture of a dredge, a sluice, or a pan. The single outstanding photograph has been used for the cover. However, anything this number lacks in imagination is compensated by a diligence in research and writing that has kept the story complete in the small space allowed — and authoritative: the highest quality of all.