New Zealand Hut Heroes: Mick Abbott

by Sam Demas, September 2018

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

Towards the end of our time in New Zealand I realized I’d heard very little about the long range future of huts, and that I hadn’t found any academics studying the world’s largest hut system.  The many passionate Kiwis I spoke with were, understandably, focused on how to preserve the huts they have and ensure equitable access to them.  However my curiosity was finally satisfied when, of all places, I was at the Canterbury Art Museum.  Asking directions to my next destination, the Lincoln University Library.  Serendipitously, this lead to an interesting chat about baches and huts with museum staff member Janet Abbott.   She said I should talk with her brother-in-law Mick Abbott at Lincoln University.  What a fortuitous meeting! I have published some of Janet’s great work about baches in Canterbury on my web site, and just before leaving NZ, I had an inspirational conversation with Professor Abbott about the future of huts!

Mick is a hard-core tramper deeply involved in NZ conservation issues, a creative and provocative thinker, and a landscape architect.   He seems to relish asking questions, but insists on not getting stuck on finding immediate answers or mired in ideologies.  His thinking represents the kind of idealism and insistence on aspiration that I imagine makes many pragmatists impatient or dismissive, and/or seems hopelessly unrealistic.  My sense is that he is always striving to stretch our thinking towards the future, towards new, seemingly impossible, possibilities.  In my experience, folks who take this approach often make earnest folks feel defensive, uncomfortable or frustrated.  Nevertheless, we need people who help push us “use the future to imagine today”. Continue reading →