In autumn, when the earthy, seasonal smell of the muttonbird colony drifted across from Chappell Island, they fashioned a crude raft from old fence posts and rusty oil drums. They paddled it across the seven hundred meters of rolling channel that separated the two islands, to harvest their yula, their muttonbirds. In the rocks of a sheltered gulch, they set a metal drum, which Donnie filled with seawater upon arrival. He lit a fire under the drum and fed it with scraps of salt-bleached driftwood he found jammed into rocky crevices and tangled amongst the seaweed at the high-water mark. High on his shoulders, Jack carried spear-loads of plump, downy muttonbird chicks in from the waving poa-fields. Together, they squeezed the amber oil from the chicks’ stomachs and threw fistfuls of grey feathers into the wind, while the waves sucked the sand from under their feet and the mollyhawks danced in expectation.

After the plucking, Jack would go back in the rookery and leave Donnie to dunk the birds into the scalding pot and rub them back to a soft, white skin. Just like his grandfather had shown him, on this same island, when he was a boy.

With their quarry stashed in hessian bags, the two-man crew drift-paddled home to Badger on the retreating tide. There, they laid out their catch on makeshift racks of manuka branches to cool. In the evening, they removed the birds’ extremities and insides before rubbing them in salt and packing their flattened pale bodies into casks. Salted and brined, the muttonbirds would keep for a whole year. When the desire arose — and it regularly did — they seasoned a few of their birds with Jack’s dried herbs and ground native peppercorns. They cooked them on carved wooden skewers around beds of glowing coals. Rendered fat dripped from scores in the birds’ crisping skin onto the fire, creating a pleasant grey smoke and adding another layer of flavor to the already delicious meat.

On such occasions, memories were aroused by the taste of their culture, and Donnie would recount stories of his childhood and Jack would listen intently.

The older man told of visiting Badger Island as a young boy. His grandfather William would sail them across from Launceston in a wooden cutter named The Bella. It was a long, wet journey in the unpowered boat, heavily burdened by people and supplies. Accompanying Donnie was his mother and three older sisters. They all stayed with William in his tiny hut, a rough and basic wooden structure with a skillion roof and only two small rooms. Surrounding the house was a ti-tree fence and a tended garden, full of bulbs and succulents. They all slept in one bed, except for William, who had a neat crib next to the fire.