Few Australian books have been quite as impactful as Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu. In the decade since it was published, Pascoe’s investigation into precolonial Aboriginal agriculture practices has sold more than 360,000 copies – and started a culture war.
Pascoe’s latest book is a reflection of sorts on the impact of Dark Emu. Black Duck, a memoir co-written with his wife, Lyn Harwood, captures a year at Yumburra, the couple’s property just outside of Mallacoota, Victoria. It tracks the aftermath of bushfires, the work of rebuilding a marriage and the personal cost of finding yourself at the centre of a national debate – as well as proposing a blueprint for better food growing and land management processes.
In 2019 bushfires struck the area around Pascoe’s property – his farm survived, while many others didn’t. Here the author tells us what items he grabbed before evacuating, as well as sharing the stories of two other important belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
I don’t have to imagine the fire because in 2019 one came to us. I had my daughter’s family with me at the farm and the sky turned a colour that told me we had an hour to get out. After convincing them how serious it was, I ended up having 10 minutes to get what I needed. My brain was ice cold while I was making the decisions.
I took the possum-skin cloak my family made for my 70th, not only because it was so precious but because, in an emergency, I knew I could get my dogs to lie on it and, if things got grim, cover them with it for protection. I took a painting Lyn had given me and a stone Uncle Jim Berg had given me to keep me safe – the stone is from the Hopkins River in Uncle Jim’s country. He gave it to me when people were questioning my identity. I looked at the coffee cup on the outside deck table and wondered if I’d see it again. I would look at that cup three more times in that fashion as the fire kept coming back.
That night six people and three dogs slept in a motel room with only two single beds. The next morning I returned to fight the fire at the farm and the highway was on fire where trees had dropped across it. I was glad I had Uncle Jim’s stone.
My most useful object
My Case tractor is the most useful thing on the farm. It lifts, shifts, grifts and repairs. But I wish it didn’t hurt so much to depress the clutch – 520 games of AFL have compromised my knees and ankles, so the heavy clutch is painful. Smashing a few bones in my left foot with a log of wood hasn’t helped.
The item I most regret losing
I wish I hadn’t lost my removable tooth brace at primary school. My teeth were all over the place, like a dropped mahjong set, and Mum and Dad got me this brace. I lost it in a week. It cost more than we could afford, and I remember searching with Mum all over the school ground one Saturday. I realised Mum’s anxiety and I knew, then, that we were poor. That lovely woman was weeping.
Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra by Bruce Pascoe with Lyn Harwood is out now ($34.99, Thames & Hudson)
Pascoe appears at the Melbourne writers’ festival, which runs 6-12 May, and the Sydney writers’ festival, which runs 20-26 May
