Film - Gerry Gill and Daz Media, 'The Map and Remembering', 2013

[The Map and Remembering]

[NARRATOR]

This map has a big name.

[Title appears on map]

[NARRATOR]

A 'Plan of the General Survey from the Town of Malmsbury to the Porcupine Inn, from the sources of Forest Creek to Golden Point, showing the Alexandrian Range, also Sawpit Gully, Bendigo and Bullock Creeks'.

[Aerial view of the coast of Victoria]

[NARRATOR]

It covers a big area of Victoria, from Sunbury and Mount Macedon in the south to Rochester and Fernihurst in the north, and from the Campaspe River in the east to the Loddon River in the west.

[Close-up on the old map]

[NARRATOR]

The map was made in 1852 by the staff of the Surveyor-General's Department, especially by Surveyor-General Robert Hoddle and Deputy Surveyor-General William Urquhart.

[Painting of men surveying]

[NARRATOR]

It represents 15 years of arduous field work.

[Close-up on old map]

[NARRATOR]

Alfred Selwyn, newly appointed chief geologist to the colony of Victoria, took this map with him into the field in 1853 and made his own rough notes about the geological structure of the country.

[Green and pink areas on the map]

[NARRATOR]

Selwyn also added to the map the green and pink colour-coding to represent the geological structure and history of the landscape. The green represents the basalt rock.

[Close-up on Green Hill]

[NARRATOR]

Green Hill, near Malmsbury, is this little spot on the map.

[Vision of current countryside landscape]

[NARRATOR]

From around five million years ago, this little extinct volcano, in a series of eruptions, poured out billions of tonnes of lava, filling the old valleys and covering the sandstone hills to form these extensive volcanic plains.

[Vision of Turpins Falls today]

[NARRATOR]

The depth of the basalt can be seen here at Turpins Falls. It goes from way below the bottom of this deep pool right up to the horizon line.

[Close-up on pink area on old map]

[NARRATOR]

Selwyn used pink to denote the granite country centred on Mount Alexander. This marks the beginning of scientific geology in Australia. The map is a beautiful work of art and the credit for this must go to one of the survey officer's draftsmen - CAC Bayly.

[Close-up on CAC Bayly's handwriting on map]

[NARRATOR]

The evenness and clarity of his handwriting, even where the size is minute, is breathtaking. He must have been proud of his work for he signed it in writing so tiny that it is at once extremely modest and a display of his virtuosity.

[Close-up on CAC Bayly's signature]

[Vision of the entire map]

[NARRATOR]

People love this map. It is fascinating, enchanting, magical. It looks so calm, still and beautiful. It invites us in to explore its intriguing, detailed descriptions, to go searching for familiar points that allow us to link the world of 1852 to the familiar present. It allows us to become time travellers. We go looking for the beginning point of our stories - Major Mitchell's story of exploration, the story of the squatters, the story of gold, the stories of Bendigo, Malmsbury, Carisbrook, and places not yet named, whole areas yet to be surveyed. The map is seductive and encourages us to linger and bathe in a soft, comfortable and comforting, nostalgic light. But this is very paradoxical. We need to break this spell.

[Painting of a countryside scene with white and Indigenous people]

[NARRATOR]

1835 - John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner of the Port Phillip Association arrive and establish a beachhead, later, Melbourne.

[Painting of 1836 Melbourne]

[NARRATOR]

1836 - Melbourne, population 200.

[Painting of 1839 Melbourne]

[NARRATOR]

1839 - Melbourne, population more than 2,000.

[Aerial view of 21st-century Melbourne]

[NARRATOR]

21st-century Melbourne - over four million.

[Map of the purchased & measured lands counties, parishes of the Melbourne & Geelong districts]

[NARRATOR]

Thomas Ham's 1849 'Map of the purchased and measured lands, counties and parishes, of the Melbourne and Geelong districts' takes us back to the violent moment of origin, the springing forth of modern European culture in this place. It represents the moment when British people burst into this part of the world and suddenly, utterly transformed it.

[Close-up on the Plan of General Survey map]

[NARRATOR]

Our 'Plan of General Survey' map is a plan for the spread of the same pattern. By the time it was made, there were over 100,000 Europeans in Victoria. Now this same region of central Victoria looks like this.

[Current aerial view of Victoria]

[NARRATOR]

From space, we can see how our history, our modern culture, inherited from Europe, has printed itself on the landscape of this place.

[Plan of General Survey map]

[NARRATOR]

But the magic of this map, made in 1852, is that it enables us to look back behind this moment of origin to see the landscape as it was before Europeans transformed it, which shows us the landscape made by Aboriginal people, by the Dja Dja Wurrung clans in this region.

[Aboriginal people camp in the bush]

[NARRATOR]

50 years of scientific and historical research has told us that Aboriginal people used the technology of systematic burning to create grasslands and open woodlands on all the areas of good soil.

[Vision of trees and yam daisy]

[NARRATOR]

This created an ecology that supported large mobs of kangaroos and emus and grew fields of yellow-flowered murnong, or yam daisy.

[Close-up on the map]

[NARRATOR]

These beautiful descriptions of the vegetation and soils follow the sweep of the landscape. They give us detailed understanding of how this Aboriginal-created and managed landscape looked when Europeans came into it.

[Vision of current soils]

[NARRATOR]

The best soils of this region are those of volcanic origin.

[Close-up on the map: 'Chocolate soil']

[NARRATOR]

This is how they were shown on the map.

[Vision of green grass]

[NARRATOR]

Often we assume that all the open country was cleared by the European Acts, but here is what Major Mitchell saw from the top of Mount Greenock.

[Black-and-white panoramic sketch]

[NARRATOR]

He drew this 180-degree sketch showing the cleared volcanic hills. He called them the 'Mammeloid Hills'.

[Views of the Mammeloid Hills today]

[NARRATOR]

If we stand on the same hill today, we can see a very similar pattern of clear country and patches of forest. The forest is on the poor sandstone country. Major Mitchell described the country in the following terms - 'Coming through similar grassy valleys, we approach two lofty, smooth round hills and I enjoyed such a charming view eastward from the summit as can but seldom fall to the lot of the explorer of new countries. The hills consisted entirely of lava and I named them, from their peculiar shape, the "Mammeloid Hills".'

[Close-up on a river on the map]

[NARRATOR]

The alluvial soils on the vast river plains and creek flats were kept open by Aboriginal burning practices. The map has these descriptions.

['Extensive level rich grassy Plains']

[NARRATOR]

They looked like this then.

[Old painting of the plains]

[NARRATOR]

In the 1840s, squatter Henry Godfrey drew the extensive grassy plains with their belts of box, she-oaks and Murray pines.

[Current images of the plains]

[NARRATOR]

The Boort Plains look like this today.

[Old painting of the plains]

[NARRATOR]

The rolling granite country was described by early Europeans as having a park-like, open woodland appearance. In many places, it is similar today. It was these grasslands that drew Europeans here.

[Focus on the map]

[NARRATOR]

So the map can remind us of something we usually prefer to forget - that our society, our modern Australian way of life is founded on an act of violent invasion and dispossession.

[Old paintings of guards and Indigenous people]

[NARRATOR]

In 1835, there were a handful of British people in Victoria.

[Old painting of houses in Victoria]

[NARRATOR]

Just 16 years later, there were over 100,000.

[Old painting of Aboriginal people's ceremony]

[NARRATOR]

In 1835, there were around 20,000 Aboriginal people in Victoria.

[Sepia photograph of Aboriginal family]

[NARRATOR]

By 1852, their numbers had fallen to around 3,000.

[Old painting of sheep stations]

[NARRATOR]

By 1852, there were over 1,000 sheep stations, outstation huts, and roadside inns spread right across Victoria. There were six million sheep and 400,000 cattle.

[Close-up of all stations on the map]

[NARRATOR]

We can see this new reality on the map. Aitken's Station and Huts, Argyle Inn, Barker's Station, and Hawkins Inn, Birch's Station, Bryant's Station, Simson's Hut, Carlsruhe Inn and Dryden's Station, Langdon's Homestead, Orr's, Stratford Lodge. There are many more stations, huts and inns on this map. They were all occupied by armed British people and they commanded all the places where there was good water and grass.

[Cover of James Boyce's book, '1835']

[NARRATOR]

Historian James Boyce argues that the invasion of Victoria was one of the fastest and most comprehensive conquests in the history of the British Empire.

[Close-up on areas of the map]

[NARRATOR]

This quiet, calm, beautiful map can show us many big stories. We can see the vast story of geology and climate here. It's the story of the Earth that has provided the opportunities and set the limits for all the human societies that have existed here.

[Images of modern town in Victoria]

[NARRATOR]

It does indeed show us the beginnings of the great stories of modern Australia as they unfolded here in this place.

[Black-and-white painting of white officers killing Aboriginal people]

[NARRATOR]

But it can also help us remember some terrible, disturbing things about our history that should not be forgotten.

[Modern, colour-coded graphs]

[NARRATOR]

Are these the new invasion and dispossession maps? These are the government maps of the climate-change projections for Victoria in 2070.

[Vision of the plains]

[NARRATOR]

Today we stand at a point of choice about what level of devastating climate change we will cause.

[Close-up on 'Aboriginal Station' on the map]

[NARRATOR]

If the map can help us remember the shameful story that should not be forgotten, it may also help us think ahead and embrace the changes necessary for the happiness of our grandchildren.

[Modern windmills]

Film - Gerry Gill and Daz Media, 'The Bendigo Creek Story' (The Map and Remembering Part 2), 2013

[Vision of old map]

[The Map and Remembering, Part 2]

[The Bendigo Creek Story]

[NARRATOR]

These are the words of Thomas Dungey who saw the Bendigo Creek before miners utterly destroyed it.

[Vision of the creek today]

[NARRATOR]

'On the Sunday morning, a beautiful day, we took a stroll to the junction of what have since been known as Back Creek and Bendigo Creek and thought it the loveliest spot on Earth, with waterholes with water in them as clear as crystal, kingfisher birds flitting about in the silver wattle, whose lovely foliage almost hid the banks of the creek from view, with occasional splashings as the duck-billed platypus tumbled from the banks into the water, but there was not a human being to be seen anywhere.'

[Man opens book titled 'Annals of Bendigo' 1851 to 1867]

[NARRATOR]

In this old volume of the Annals of Bendigo, there's a remarkable sketch map that gives us an idea of what Thomas Dungey was talking about.

[Map titled 'The Infancy of Bendigo']

[NARRATOR]

The map was drawn by William Sandbach for the purpose of telling the story of the birth of the Bendigo Goldfields. He's interested in who was the first to find gold, where it was found, who was there in the early months, and where their mia-mias and tents were pitched. But, unintentionally, Sandbach is telling us an earlier story - the long story of the Aboriginal occupation and management of the valley of the Bendigo Creek.

[Close-up of 'Open treeless flat' on the map]

[NARRATOR]

We now recognise that 'open treeless flat' is telling us that the alluvial soil of the creek flats were kept treeless by the systematic burning regime practised by generations of Dja Dja Wurrung people.

[Close-up of the 'Wooded Point' on the map]

[NARRATOR]

The 'wooded point' is on the rocky, shallow sandstone soils that won't grow grass and are best left as forest.

[Old painting of the creek and the forest]

[NARRATOR]

Without regular burning or heavy grazing, and left to regenerate, the creek flats returned to being covered by trees.

[Close-up on ponds on the map]

[NARRATOR]

The creek is shown as a chain of ponds. This was the characteristic of many inland rivers and creeks. Some of the more astute settlers noted that European hard-hooved sheep and cattle trampled the banks and ate out the plants that held the banks and stream bed together.

[Vision of current creek]

[NARRATOR]

This led to the deeply eroded, steep-sided creeks we're familiar with today.

[Black-and-white photograph of the valley]

[NARRATOR]

Another witness said, 'Previous to being disfigured by the diggers, the valley of Bendigo had a park-like appearance.

[The valley today with green grass areas]

[NARRATOR]

The flats carpeted with green grass were dotted with shady gums, there was a chain of waterholes which all year round before the gold era contained a good supply of sweet, clear water.'

[Black-and-white sketch of goldminers]

[NARRATOR]

This goldfields artist captured the energy and busyness of the Bendigo Goldfields in 1852.

[Painting by Ludwig Becker]

[NARRATOR]

German Romantic artist Ludwig Becker did this more sombre painting of Golden Square, Bendigo in 1853.

[Drawing by Becker: The Notabilities of Bendigo]

[NARRATOR]

Becker also did this drawing of The Notabilities of Bendigo and wrote this reflection - '"Grass does not grow upon a miner's path," is a German proverb very applicable to the diggings. Here flourished once the noble forest. Eureka! Suddenly there comes from the south a storm of human beings. The very frame of the earth is bared for hidden treasure. The ancient trees are felled for the service of the invaders. Sometimes yet, a charred and sapless trunk is found still standing upright like a shade from Hades as one of a race of giants long since passed away.'

[Drawing of puddling machine]

[NARRATOR]

It was the technology of puddling that finally put paid to the Bendigo Creek.

[Black-and-white image of the Bendigo Goldfields]

[NARRATOR]

By the late 1850s on the Bendigo Goldfields, there were 10,000 men and 5,000 horses working 2,000 puddling machines. This poured out millions of cubic metres of stinking yellow sludge each year that oozed its way into the gullies and choked the creeks.

[Black-and-white photograph of flooded town]

[NARRATOR]

During heavy rains, sludge flooded into the houses and shops and pubs.

[Black-and-white image of Bendigo]

[NARRATOR]

Bendigo gradually transformed itself from a pockmarked wasteland interspersed with diggers' tents into a town where people went about their domestic and working lives.

[Close-up on buildings]

[NARRATOR]

Grand public buildings, businesses, parks and avenues emerged and expressed civic pride, but the problems of sludge and the obliterated creek repeatedly presented problems and disruption. The aspiration for a colonial Pall Mall was challenged by sludge.

[Vision of a folder titled 'Report - Royal Commission - To enquire into the best method - Removing the Sludge']

[NARRATOR]

The Parliament of Victoria established a royal commission called The Sludge Commission to fix the problem, and this set in train the making of a new paved course for the creek and the building of a timber box drain to take the sludge out to a swamp near Huntley.

[Drawing of the timber box drain]

[NARRATOR]

The legacy of mining problems demanded engineering solutions.

[Bridge over the creek today]

[NARRATOR]

The result is the creek we know today - a large gutter that runs through the centre of Bendigo.

[Geological map of Victoria]

[NARRATOR]

The sludge was not only a problem for Bendigo. The mauve colour on this geological map represents the sludge. The sludge flowed over 160km north of Bendigo and covered more than 700km sq of country with hard infertile material.

[Eroded bank of Bendigo Creek]

[NARRATOR]

Here at Huntley, we are looking at three metres of sludge in the eroded bank of Bendigo Creek.

[Man, woman and boy walk in field]

[NARRATOR]

There are people in traditional owner groups, government agencies and volunteer groups who are committed to the long process of regenerating Bendigo Creek. I met Nicole Howie, Secretary of the North Bendigo Landcare Group, and her son Ned out on the creek near Huntley, to see what the group were doing and hear what motivated them. It was quite inspiring. They are controlling weeds and feral trees like the peppercorns and replanting with natives.

[Nesting boxes]

[NARRATOR]

They are building nesting boxes for possums and birds.

[Vision of the creek]

[NARRATOR]

They engage community from primary and secondary school students through TAFE and university students through to the older blokes from the Men In Sheds group who built the nesting boxes. They have a vision for the future.

[Series of ponds on the map]

[NARRATOR]

It's deeply moving that the Landcare Group and the Catchment Management Authority people know the Sandbach map that shows the creek as a chain of ponds, and they know our 'Plan of General Survey' map and they're guided and inspired by it.

[Close-up of Bendigo Creek on the Plan of General Survey map]

[NARRATOR]

When they ponder the map, through it, they are learning from the traditional owners and applying their learning to create a new sustainable future.

[Children planting trees]

[NARRATOR]

Similar things are happening across the country and, hopefully, the world. Caring for country and for coming and future generations is deeply embedded in the human spirit. It's a source of power and motivation we will have to harness.

Film - Gerry Gill and Daz Media, 'Storytelling & Collections' (The Map and Remembering, Part 3), 2013

[Man sitting, old map on the wall]

[GERRY GILL]

I'm Gerry Gill, producer of this series of films and audio stories. They all concern that cataclysmic period in Victoria's history between 1835 and 1852 when Europeans from Great Britain burst into this part of the world and utterly transformed it, shattering Aboriginal society and initiating deep-going environmental changes. All these stories concern this beautiful old map that was made in 1852. I tell you about it in the first film.

[Close-up on the map]

[GERRY GILL]

Here it is blown up at twice life-size so that I can almost walk into it and see the detail. I've been studying it for 15 years and I still haven't exhausted it.

[Vision of a vast shed]

[GERRY GILL]

Last year, I tracked down the original of this map. This is its keeping place. It's at Werribee in the Department of Primary Industry's core library, a vast shed that holds the drilled-out core samples from mineral prospecting.

[Inside the shed, bank of plan presses]

[GERRY GILL]

In a room here, there is a bank of plan presses that store maps that go right back to the beginnings of the history of mining in Victoria.

[Man opens drawer full of maps]

[GERRY GILL]

There are many very precious maps here. The map's important to these stories because it enables me to locate the human stories, whether they're Aboriginal or European, colonial or contemporary, into the context of the much larger story of the landscape that unfolds in geological time. In our times, the relationship of human beings to the old earth has become quite explicitly the major problem facing the species. The stories from the past, the concerns of the present, and all the futures that we imagine or fear they're intertwined in really interesting ways. The past has come and gone, and it leaves behind all the achievements and detritus of past lives - buildings, tools, books, diaries, tunes, journals, paintings.

[Close-up on Gerry Gill]

[GERRY GILL]

But the stories about this past are created, told and heard now, and the stories that catch our attention and hold our interest are ones that are relevant to our imagined or feared futures.

[State Library of Victoria]

[GERRY GILL]

Most of the paintings, drawings and photographs from the colonial period used in these films are from the Pictures Collection of the State Library of Victoria. I've also drawn on materials from the Maps Collection, and on journals, diaries and papers from the Manuscripts Collection.

[Dja Dja Wurrung Enterprises Pty Ltd building]

[GERRY GILL]

The custodians of Aboriginal heritage in the area of central Victoria is the Dja Dja Wurrung clan's Aboriginal corporation. They are responsible for the protection of artefacts and of significant Aboriginal places in the landscape, including its sacred sites.

[Various Aboriginal artefacts]

[GERRY GILL]

Aboriginal artefacts from Dja Dja Wurrung country have been collected by individuals and organisations and dispersed around Australia and the world. The Dja Dja Wurrung aspire to create a proper keeping place on country to collect, protect and display their cultural heritage.

[Close-up of Aboriginal Station on map]

[GERRY GILL]

The main source of information about the Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate at Franklinford is the Public Record Office of Victoria.

[Building of the Victorian Archives Centre]

[Extract of the Census]

[GERRY GILL]

These records include the 1841 and 1843 Census of Aborigines that show the clan and clan memberships of the Dja Dja Wurrung. They also include the surgeon's records.

[Old books in La Trobe University, Bendigo's library]

[GERRY GILL]

In La Trobe University, Bendigo's library is its special collection of old books that document the emergence of the regional city of Bendigo out of the dust, mud and destruction of the Gold Rush.

[Bendigo Art Gallery]

[GERRY GILL]

I've also drawn on Bendigo Art Gallery's collection of images of early Bendigo. Sometimes you go to a collection or to a keeping place to track down a story, but at other times, you can be researching in an archive or a library, or poking about the bush, and it's as if a story finds you. It's as though a story's called out to you. Something makes you hearken, and you attend more closely than you usually would. You feel there's something to learn, something to communicate, a story there that you can build on and elaborate and share with others.