Cooktown does a great job of honouring the various strands of its history. The streets are full of information panels, statues and street art that draw attention to Aboriginal history; Captain Cook’s visit; the Palmer River gold rush and the flood of Chinese; and European settlement. The Captain Cook museum, housed in a beautiful old convent restored out of rack and ruin, has Aboriginal and Chinese rooms as well as Cook memorabilia.
The Aboriginal story is told on the tiled Milbi wall, created by Aboriginal artists. It begins with the story of the creation of the Endeavour River and proceeds in a long flow through the missions up to the present. The story also appears in footpath tiles, an image paired with words, and in word-panels and objects in the Cook Museum.
Captain James Cook is memorialised everywhere. He spent forty eight days in Cooktown strategising his next step when his ship, the Endeavour, ran aground on the reef. There is James Cook monument commemorating his landing on June 17, 1770, featuring kangaroo and wombat heads; James Cook statue; a cairn to mark the place where he beached the Endeavour; and in the museum the tree he tethered the Endeavour to and one of its anchors.
Other traces of white colonisation appear in a cairn dedicated to Edmund Kennedy, an explorer of the region who was speared in 1848; a statue of a hopeful miner with swag, pick and pan; and a cannon begged from the government in Brisbane to ward off a feared Russian invasion. The story of Mary Watson, wife of a beche-de-mer fisherman, told in another post, is also honoured in a monument.
When gold was discovered on the Palmer River, there was of course a rush to make fortunes. By 1877, an astonishing ninety percent of the goldfield population was Chinese (http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:205732/s00855804_1987_13_2_49.pdf) Cooktown acknowledges this huge Chinese presence with a sculpture near the wharf and a room of objects in the museum, including a pair of tiny shoes, not much bigger than a baby’s, to fit bound feet.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooktown,_Queensland
http://www.nationaltrust.org.au/qld/JamesCooktheEndeavourRiverandCooktown
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What an incredibly busy time you are having this year Meg, and you are finding time to keep us up to date with your travels. I found Cooktown to be a real surprise I hadn’t expected such an interesting place. Have a safe trip to Warsaw. When do you go?
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Leave home today, fly out tomorrow. Actually, I’m selfish: I’m keeping myself up to date with my travels! When I write it there’s a better chance of remembering. And it allows me to discard photos. The man in Cairns tourist info centre (when I finally found the official one) told me I had to go there, but I too was surprised at all it offered.
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Safe travels and I look forward to seeing Warsaw in summer clothing…
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Had to return to this adventure! The tile story is magnificent, isn’t it? And ‘our man’ Cook, of course. But what really caught my eye was the sculpture of the Chinese. I love it! 🙂
You’re obviously ‘clearing the decks’ before you switch blogs. 🙂 🙂 I’ll be going to Poland with a muddle of Algarvia and English left behind to unravel later. I’m in my usual small funk at the minute. Why, oh why don’t I do something about the language between visits? You must be a little more proficient now but I haven’t a hope. Once more the idiot comes with hugs and smiles and shakings of head!
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On Saturday make that two idiots! I was doing daily stuff until this mad tearing around began in December. Fortunately the twins are putting in the effort, and speaking good English. My daughter’s very pleased. We’re contemplating living there for a year: that should make a minute difference.
Enjoy Poland. I look forward to your role as my tour guide.
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I saw that in your reply to Gilly. Sounds like a great idea. Farewell hugs! 🙂 (and an idiot grin)
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The wall is fantastic! It’s good to read about Native Title, the European colonists have a lot to answer for in many countries around the world with their greed and plundering.
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I’m just reading an account of savage dispossession on the south coast, and the settler mythologies created to justify or disappear what happened to the originaÅ‚ inhabitants.
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Fascinating post. Lovely history lesson. And wonderful wall.
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Can you guess I really loved Cooktown? Although a friend was just about run out of town there years ago when as a conservationist she wanted to hołd a meeting to protest against logging.
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I imagine it might be a challenging place to live in, being so isolated.
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I met a woman walking her dog in the gardens. She was a teacher at the high school, and was thinking of staying five years. As a history teacher, she was relishing the experience.
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I was interested in the experience of your conservationist friend Meg. In 1988 Mum ticked off a couple of people on our trip to Daintree who made derogatory and ill-informed comments about protesting conservationists concerned for the future of Daintree.
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How fascinating! Love that the panels are exhibited outside the museum for all to enjoy. I have always been intrigued by Maori history, and would love to see this in person someday. Thank you for sharing Meg.
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I was impressed with the celebration of the Aboriginal presence in an outpost town. (Maori’s New Zealand; indigenous though, in both cases.)
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