Historical perspectives on NZ Department of Conservation huts and tracks

by Sam Demas

(Note: this is part of the larger work New Zealand Huts: Notes towards a Country Study)

New Zealand huts history: one cannot grasp the meaning, extent, challenges and opportunities of huts in NZ without a bit of historical perspective.  Huts and tracks everywhere reflect the culture and terrain of the nations in which they evolved; this is vibrantly evident in New Zealand.  The piece provides historical perspectives on the DoC hut system only, and does not treat the broader scope of other (i.e. non-DoC) huts and tracks in New Zealand, e.g. privately owned huts.

 

What follows is a small historical sketch providing context for the other posts on NZ huts.  At the end of this post is a list of books for readers who want more than a cursory introduction to the historical context of huts in NZ.

The focus here is on the contemporary history of how the NZ Department of Conservation (DoC) — established in 1987 — came to inherit the world’s largest and best organized hut system, and how it forged the disparate parts into a coherent, government-operated system of about 962 huts.  A few key events in DoC history between 1987 – 2010 highlight how this transformation took place.  During this period about 100 new huts were built, most to replace existing structures in poor condition.

The hundreds of private NZ huts are not discussed here.  However, even the briefest and narrowest sketch of NZ hut history must emphasize at the outset how deeply huts, including private huts, are baked into the Kiwi psyche.

Infrastructure lying in wait

Characterized by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard , as “the taproot of habitation”, the primitive hut is the earliest example of human architecture.  In the case of NZ this included Maori huts and later the homes and work abodes of early European settlers.  These structures are deeply embedded in NZ history and culture.  By the late 19^th century simple structures providing “shelter from the storm” were scattered all over the NZ backcountry.  They included huts used by farmers and sheep musters, miners and road-builders, a wide range of animal control huts (e.g. for trapping or shooting deer, possum, rabbits, wild dogs, stoats, etc.).  Over time these huts were deeply imprinted in Kiwi consciousness as both practical and nostalgic features of the landscape.

The early 20^th century began a period of building huts for tourism and recreation, including government-built tourism huts and numerous tramping club huts.  In addition, huts were built for a range of scientific purposes.  From these early huts, mostly built to support work-related necessity for shelter, there developed a very strong and egalitarian NZ culture of tramping based on using hut infrastructure.  This impulse to connect with nature by spending nights in the backcountry gave rise to a national love of one of the key dimensions of the hut experience world-wide: conviviality.  Shaun Barnett closes his introductory essay to Shelter from the Storm with a marvelous quote by NZ mountaineer Paul Power:

It came to me what shelter means in the mountains. Huts, tents, shelter rocks, were more than stops along the way – places where men stayed to eat and sleep, leaving them to hunt deer, cross passes or cut transient steps up summit ice.

Shelter in the hills meant more than cleaning a rifle, mapping the cross-country tramp, or resting for the climb. In huts or under bivvy rocks men were relaxed.  By the fire they bragged like Norsemen, argued like Jesuits, sang like minstrels, and dreamed like poets … Such hospices were the beginning and the end of mountain life with the minutes of action sandwiched in between.

This notion of the “hospice” captures the meaning of huts to Kiwis as special places of connection, tying together the generations with stories and memories, combining to forge a simple, powerful, and deeply shared communal experience of the NZ backcountry.

Historical sketch of the DoC hut system:

DoC was formed in 1987 by the amalgamation of parts of several government agencies (including parts of the NZ Forest Service, Lands and Survey, and Internal Affairs).  This brought a wildly variable range of land and backcountry infrastructure under the administration of a single government agency.  This included the “conservation estate” i.e. all of NZ’s land deemed to be of conservation value (over one-third of its total land mass), and a range of backcountry infrastructure on these lands.  Each of the parent agencies had built huts in service to their conservation and natural resources management roles.  The exact numbers and locations were unclear in some cases, and it took more than fifteen years to fully integrate these huts into a coherent system.

Today DoC oversees 13 National Parks, 20 Forest Parks, 21 wilderness areas, and a growing number of Marine Reserves, collectively known as the conservation estate.  The conservation-focused brief of this government agency includes maintaining about 963 huts, nearly 15,000 km of tracks (trails), thousands of bridges, dozens of campgrounds, and many interpretive centers.

In its efforts to advance the amalgamation of these assets into a national system, DoC received a shock to the system in the wake of the Cave Creek tragedy.  In 1995, 15 people were killed when a viewing platform collapsed.  DOC systematically set about inventorying and inspecting, all its physical assets.  The agency undertook a massive program to develop national standards for facilities in order to ensure safe and responsible maintenance and operation of all its recreational and scientific infrastructure.  This management imperative hastened the fashioning of a disparate collection of infrastructure into the world’s largest coordinated hut and track system.  This was accomplished despite limited funding and setbacks.  DoC’s efforts received widespread support from environmentalists, trampers and their various clubs and organizations, but was not without controversy.  In summary, the DoC:

• inventoried and assessed the condition of the huts (and other structures) it inherited,
• gathered public input on major policy decisions,
• repaired, replaced, or removed huts according to need,
• re-branded eight high use tracks as Great Walks and gradually added others,
• developed new safety standards, and increased emphasis on meeting (or introducing sensible flexibility if need be) existing building codes, fire codes, health and safety regulations, and gradually developed a “Code for Backcountry Huts” incorporated into the national building code,
• implemented improved management of huts, including hut inspections and hut maintenance plans,
• developed five categories of huts (by number of bunks) and criteria for hut location, design, colors, size, and environmental impact,
• developed simple and cost-effective national hut designs,
• utilized new materials and construction techniques to address deficiencies,
• built 100 new huts, mostly to replace existing huts, and
• created a program of hut conservation and hut historians to document this rich history.

 

Inevitably, conflicts and concerns emerged in the process of unifying the many pieces into a coherent system on huts and tracks on public lands.  These included matters such as:

• charging fees for huts and hiking,
• the extent to which private interests can profit from use of public lands,
• mitigating the environmental impact of huts and tramping,
• the essential tension between providing access to the backcountry and preserving true Wilderness,
• the freedom of average citizens to walk on tracks managed by private companies,
• increasing bureaucratization of the agency and its approach to the huts, and
• concern that the needs and values of Kiwi trampers were not being valued sufficiently in an agency push to cater to international tourism.

Some of these issues were resolved over the years and others linger today.

In 2003 DoC faced a pressing need to rationalize its hut system due to insufficient funding to maintain all the huts in its portfolio.  This meant making some hard choices, including about which huts to close and dismantle due to their remote locations, low use and/or poor condition, and which to abandon in hopes that they would be maintained by volunteers.  Initially as many as 481 of DoC’s 958 huts were identified for removal.  There was a public outcry.  The process for public comment for this review of huts, called the Recreational Opportunity Review, included a series of public meetings with submissions from the groups such as the Federated Mountain Clubs of NZ, tramping clubs, hunting clubs, and from many individuals.  In the end the number of huts slated for removal was reduced dramatically, and DoC received a much-needed significant funding increased.  The people were heard.  Another outcome of the process was the development of simple, cost-effective national standard designs for 4, 6,10, and 20 bunk huts.

History in the making  

The national conversation about DoC’s inability to maintain all its huts catalyzed a range of activities that have borne fruit in recent years.  In addition to protesting cutbacks, Kiwi’s began to strengthen, develop and publicize voluntary efforts in preserving endangered elements of their beloved hut system.  These include:

• the founding of Permolat, an online voluntary community for the preservation of remote huts,
• the development of the Outdoor Recreation Consortium.
• these two efforts demonstrated to DoC the skills and commitment of volunteers, and gradually culminated in a public/private partnership model which DoC funds the Backcountry Trust, which in turn provides support for voluntary hut maintenance efforts nationwide.
• DoC’s development of a historic heritage unit that includes a number of advisors active in hut restorations.
• An increase in donations to build huts as memorials to loved ones.
• Ongoing debate and discussion about the purposes, meaning and management of national parks, wilderness areas and the conservation estate more generally.
• Granting of legal status to Te Urewera lands (formerly a national park) and placing them under an evolving management scheme that will reflect Maori values in land and water use; this includes a major concentration of huts in the former National Park.

These selected highlights give the reader some context for the formation of a large government-operated hut system.  Specific policy and operational aspects of DoC’s management of its hut system, which grew directly out of the events outlined above, are elaborated some of my related posts, e.g here and here.

There is much more to the story!

Resources for deeper historical context

There is a rich literature on huts and tramping in NZ, I recommend starting with two indispensable books:

• Shelter From the Storm by Shaun Barnett, Rob Brown, and Geoff Spearpoint (Craig Potton Publishing, 2012).
• Tramping a New Zealand History, by Shaun Barnett and Chris Maclean (Craig Potton Publishing, 2014).

Also by Barnett, Brown and Spearpoint A Bunk for the Night: A Guide to New Zealand’s Best Backcountry Huts, Potton & Burton, 2016(?).

Other insightful works on huts and tramping include works by Mark Pickering, notably:

• A Trampers Journey, Craig Potton Publishing, 2004.
• Huts: untold stories from back-country NZ, Canterbury University Press, 2010, and
• The Hills, Heinemann Reid, 1988.

For those interested in more detail than is provided in this sketch, but are not yet ready to read a full book, check out my reviews of Shelter from the Storm.  Even better read the downloadable reprint of the Introduction to Shelter From the Storm; this essay by Shaun Barnett is an excellent introduction to NZ huts.

NZ huts are best understood within the context of environmental conservation and the role of humans in this fabulously beautiful, remote landscape.

• For a quick, informative and stimulating sense of the broader landscape/environmental history of NZ, see: Michael King’s magisterial overview Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin Books, 2012. While a 500-page book can only skim the surface of a nation’s history, this one does it very well.  For most of us, dipping into chapters selectively is more manageable than reading the entire book.  The first few chapters set the pre-historic and early history, chapter 11 on the seminal Treaty of Waitangi is useful (even more so is the Wikipedia article), and Chapter 26, land under pressure, briefly provides invaluable historical context on environmental history.
• Wild Heart: the possibility of wilderness in Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Mick Abbott and Richard Reeve, Otago University Press, 2011. These 17 essays by trampers, conservationists, historians, writers, scientists, and conservationists provide useful perspective on how Kiwi’s are thinking about the nature, roles, uses and protection of wilderness today.  It gives a good sense of the many ways in which wildness is “at the nation’s psychological and physical core”.
• Environmental historian Geoff Parks’s provocative Theatre Country: essays on landscape and Whenua, Victoria University Press, 2006. The Maori word whenua means both placenta and people, and this series of essays explores how New Zealanders – indigenous and colonial — are, and are not, connected to the land they occupy.  Parks’ thinking about wilderness and landscape seems to be in the spirit of William Cronon, but with a distinctive Kiwi sensibility.   The essays range widely, discussing the historical views of landscape and the picturesque imported from British romanticism, nature tourism, and it frames New Zealand’s approach to landscape as a profoundly and misguidedly dichotomous insistence on dividing the nation into two distinct theatrical scenes, both playing out on a national stage largely outside the critical awareness of the actors: 1. the intensively cultivated 51% of the land, and 2. the highly protected, puristic notion of “wilderness” characterized by DoC’s management regime for the 33% of the land set aside as the nation’s conservation estate.  I cannot resist a quote from Parks that perhaps summarizes his message to New Zealand (and the world):

“New Zealand’s fertile plains were the last that Europeans found before the Earth’s supply revealed itself as finite.  Our relationship with them has been completely unsustainable….[We] have exploited these islands’ richest ecosystems with all the violence that modern science and technology could summon…..[We] must live with the rest of nature or die with the rest of nature.”