Charles Douglas, Mountain Explorer

LANDING in Otago in the sixties, Charles Douglas found his way to the West Coast. He was a young man of old Scottish descent with no settled occupation or inclination save that of see­ing the world. After his arrival at the West Coast he never left it except when he nosed over a Divide pass to Canterbury or Otago, and then his return to Westland was usually a matter of a few hours. Douglas is to-day the least known of New Zea­land’s explorers, yet he proved himself one of the greatest. He did not set out for such a title. His life was governed by his environment, a rough untamed wilderness which in turn he understood. It began slowly. He carried ‘ tucker’ to prospecting parties, for want of any other work, till such time as his small remittance arrived from Scotland. His loads were tough; so was his physique. Everything about Westland interested him — the birds, the bush, the mountains, and the minerals. Towns, as such, made him impatient to be out of them.

So he drifted into the task of a self-appointed, unpaid pioneer. His natural ability as an artist, and his extensive powers of literary observation gave his notebooks a piquancy and charm that en­liven even technical descriptions. Most of his work was carried out alone, if we except his dog ‘ Betsey,’ who kept his cooking billy filled with birds. Later in his life the Lands and Survey Department recognised his outstanding services, and G. J. Roberts in particular helped him as one friend to another. Affectionately regarded as the grand old explorer of Westland, he died in Hokitika. His name does not figure in newspaper articles, but the old-timers of Ross and Okarito have made his name respected.

So much for the man. His work would take a volume to describe. It can only be said that he travelled up nearly every Westland river, and that all the long active period of his life was devoted to acquiring first-hand knowledge of the compli­cated ranges and valleys of Westland. His most arduous journeys were up the Arawhata, Waiatoto, Cook, Karangarua, and Waitaha Rivers. Between the seventies and 1900 his camps and his footsteps had blazed a maze of trails.