Living with Fire: People, Nature and History in Steels Creek

Community

Christine Hansen

The first Saturday following the devastating fires of February 2009 was an assigned market day. The valley was holding its breath after the firestorm that had exploded out of the surrounding bushland just seven days before. Smoke was still hanging in a hazy layer on the horizon and rumours of destruction swirled in eddies, mixing with the charred remains. Who had succumbed? Who had survived? What had been lost? What had been saved? Miraculously (with some help from the team of Ivan Filsell, his son and grandson), the wooden Community Centre was still standing when every tree and blade of grass surrounding it was gone. Discussions about whether to hold the market or not brought focus to the confusion of that first week, as people struggled without access to basic amenities such as clean water, phones and power, or to find clothing and accommodation for those who had lost everything. Would it be insensitive to carry on as usual? Organisers decided to go ahead with their plans. The community, they reasoned, needed a place to gather together: to meet neighbours and friends, hear news of who had perished, who had lost their house, their livelihood, their pets, their gardens; to share the first exhalation of breath as the chaos and terror of the firestorm began a slow and painful retreat into the past.

Ivan Filsell, ‘Three generations at work’, 2011.

As market day dawned, people still black with ash, many struggling to find enough clothes to make a public appearance, began arriving at the Community Centre. Car after car lined up for a space on the grassy verge. Still in shock, the valley residents emerged into the charred landscape to present themselves to each other, living evidence of their survival. People dug deep to find an object to exchange at the ‘market’; a bunch of charred flowers here and a few blackened potates there, all a determined reminder of life.

Regular market days usually attracted between 30 and 40 people; it’s more about swapping news than buying the jars of homemade jams and pickles for sale. The Saturday after the fires, however, the crowd swelled to almost 200 at its peak, a record in the 20-year history of the market.¹ Much-needed information circulated; some brought reports of missing neighbours who had fled before the storm and were staying with relatives; some knew of others seeking treatment in the city; some had hair-raising tales of a close escape; some had lost their home; some had returned to put down animals too badly injured to survive; some were still too dazed to speak but needed the balm of company. Most shocking of all was news of those who had perished, the worst in the long list of losses. Over the following days and weeks, as the smoke lifted and the clearing of debris began, the terrible picture of what had occurred came into sharper focus: 10 people died; 67 houses burnt to the ground leaving more than 250 people homeless;² an untallied number of pets and farm animals perished and an unimaginable number of native birds and animals – many of them much-loved wild friends of the valley community – were killed.

On this first Saturday, as the crowd of neighbours and friends milled in and around the little schoolhouse, they shared their shock, grief and relief in equal measure, drawing together in a spontaneous gesture of community: the people of Steels Creek.

* * *

Steels Creek is not so much a place as an attitude. At least that’s the description offered by president of the Steels Creek Community Centre at the time of the fires, Keith Montell. ‘The relationship between infrastructure and community, between material things and people, is different here … A lot of people have asked since the fire: How do you define Steels Creek? I say: It’s a state of mind. If you want to be here, you’re welcome.’ Driving the length of Steels Creek Road as it travels along the valley floor, you get a sense of what he means. Just 10 km from end to end, this picturesque country avenue follows the north–south line of the creek from its plunge off the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range in the north to its convergence with the Yarra River in the south. Although clearly marked on the map as a locality, there is no marker to tell the passing tourist they have arrived, save the ‘Welcome to Steels Creek’ sign that straddles a roadside culvert at a seemingly random location.

Despite the lack of material definition, the people of Steels Creek determinedly pursue their idea of community. It is shared interests and group activities that bring them together and the old schoolhouse is the hub around which the goings-on revolve. When the school closed in 1992, locals mounted a fierce campaign to wrest control of the building from the state government. Twenty years on the appreciation of that struggle has not diminished. Serving as a meeting room, talks hall, picture theatre, gallery, plant propagation area, marketplace, art studio, sewing room, picnic area and even on occasion as a field laboratory, the little weatherboard and corrugated iron building holds the vision of community in place. In April 2012 a new extension to the Community Centre was opened.

Not everyone in Steels Creek participates in the idea of valley life that flows through the Community Centre, however, and people often express delicate feelings about inclusion and exclusion. Not surprisingly. There is a distinct demographic flavour to the group who keep the activities alive, although they more than any are aware of the ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ sensitivities and are at pains to insist that they don’t define the community. Most have arrived from the suburbs of Melbourne, bringing with them self-funded retirement income, capital from real estate divestment or resources to start up niche businesses. With a metropolitan railway line just 20 km away and a six-lane freeway leading to the heart of Melbourne starting not far beyond, some still commute to the city for work. A new generation work at home using technology to ‘telecommute’. Others spend weekdays in a pied-à-terre in town, returning to the valley for weekends, although they nominate Steels Creek as their primary home. Still others enjoy their ‘weekender’ when time permits, and have done so for more than two decades. Whatever their circumstances, the idea of ‘belonging’ is important to this group and the way in which they make an effort to belong adds complexity and often expertise to the local mix.

Steels Creek has lent itself to this type of demographic expansion over the last three or four decades for a number of reasons: its location in relation to the city, its setting along the border of Kinglake National Park, an area of great natural beauty, and its proximity to two large universities at the north-eastern and north-western edges of outer Melbourne play significant roles. Many in the first wave of ‘tree-changers’ to the valley in the 1980s were academics and many of those specialised in natural sciences. To the extent that they were educated and, by local standards at least, well heeled, these new arrivals reflected the interests of people in peri-urban areas around the developed world. The 1980s was a time of social reorientation when many disillusioned city dwellers looked for alternatives to the fast-paced, high-consumption lifestyle on offer. Australians were no exception. An existing love of the outdoors and a proud do-it-yourself culture helped the social revolution of the previous decades find form in a momentum towards country living. City dwellers searched for locations where they might make their dream of a ‘return to the land’ and an increased self-sufficiency became a reality. A coincidence in global trade circumstances helped them along. When Australian dairy exports to the United Kingdom ceased almost overnight in the mid-1970s many small farms failed, leaving large tracts of farmland close to the city vacant. A generation ready to adopt an alternative lifestyle took advantage of the opportunity. Everywhere along the populated coastal fringes of Australia large acreage farms were divided into smaller lots or bought for multiple occupancy developments. The areas surrounding Steels Creek in the upper Yarra Valley and nearby districts were some of the first to transform. Christmas Hills, Panton Hills, Kangaroo Ground, Arthurs Creek, Hurstbridge and St Andrews became centres where alternative communities flourished, renowned for their adaptive mud brick architecture as much as for their self-sufficiency ambitions and desire for community.

Although on the edge of the main ‘mud brick belt’, the valley of Steels Creek attracted its share of urban refugees. The gentle vistas to the east, the dramatic escarpment to the west and north, the protected bushland of the adjacent national park and the opportunity to own ‘some space’ made the valley an attractive destination. In return, the new arrivals brought a welcome wave of energy into a flagging economy. Unlike other areas of the Yarra Valley, Steels Creek had never been a site of flourishing primary production, despite its appearance of abundance. Some of the soils provide good drainage, but are too deficient in nutrients to support much pasture and the few farms that did exist were mainly fruit orchards growing crops that enjoyed poorer conditions. Financially independent of the local economy, the new arrivals were free to choose land for reasons other than its production potential: outlooks to the surrounding countryside, extant native bush, the gurgling creek, proximity to the national park and so on. Blocks of land on the ridges and escarpment that were worthless as farms suddenly became ideal ‘lifestyle’ properties, many of them with panoramic views across the Great Dividing Range. Where not long before 100 acres was barely enough, suddenly 20-acre blocks were becoming the norm.

As the idea of the rural retreat settled into the aspirations of mainstream Australia during the decades following the 1980s, those who had already made the transition sought to connect with the places and people that now surrounded them. Locals produced newspapers and newsletters (including Steels Creek’s The Jolly Thing, the now online community information sheet whose title came from an editor’s worries about how to get people ‘to read the jolly thing’); set up farmers’ markets and food cooperatives; founded artists’ studios; and craft groups, skills workshops, reading groups, film clubs and information sessions all became regular fixtures on local calendars in small town Australia. Steels Creek, with its ready-made meeting space and its educated population, was ripe for such a flourishing and a lively local culture took root. Over the years the pulse of community in the valley settled into a seasonal rhythm; the time for planting, the time for pruning; the time for planning, the time for doing. The gentle pace of valley life ebbed and flowed, with activities following the course of the year: walking groups in the cooler months, an art show in the autumn, barbeques in the summer evenings, open gardens in the spring.

But the wave of urban migrants that arrived in the valley did not arrive into an empty landscape. A local community with long traditions was already in place. Some valley dwellers were descendants of settler families that had made their mark on the landscape over a century before. Some were tradespeople, service industry staff, council workers and farmhands, attracted to the area for family or economic reasons. Some had small businesses that depended on the local economy for survival. And not everyone was happy with the new arrivals. As the tide of people moving from the city reached the valley, cultural and political diversity followed. Inevitably occasional tensions flared as ideas, tastes and values came into conflict. Today Steels Creek is anything but monocultural, yet even if the occasional class or culture clash erupts, variety among the valley dwellers is usually easily accommodated. It is part of the charm of the place and one of the reasons it inspires such loyalty.

Local knowledge and a sense of shared experience are other factors that bring people together. The tracks and trails along which people live their lives are carved not just into the landscape but into personal histories. Local knowledge is won from experience and observation. It is inherited from families, passed on through neighbours, dug for in archives. It is exchanged in the carpark of the supermarket, at the bar of the pub, at the bowser of the petrol station, at the drop-off line of the school. The witnessing of time, the investment of self and the relationships within the community are the strands that bind people to the landscape and it is within this weave that a sense of place is formed. Perhaps that is why the fires of Black Saturday were felt as a betrayal by so many. For people who had invested so deeply in this place, the violent rending of this intimate social fabric was personal and challenged their confidence that they knew and understood their habitat. The deep grooves along which people travel – to work, to the city, to school, to social and sporting events, to visit friends and neighbours – and the experience and memories that are located within those pathways, conspire to give an impression of inevitability to this place. It feels real, fully formed, more than just a social construction or the accumulation of ideas and histories. But there is nothing inevitable about these layers of history. Each is the result of a moment, an era, an action that has left its particular and unique trace.

* * *

Hoogies Hardware in Yarra Glen, at the mouth of the Steels Creek valley, is a one-stop-shop for all your rural needs. Its unmissable roadside sign declaring ‘Hoogies – No Worries’ on the edge of town clears up any queries you might have had about the contemporary local economy, with their purple and green logo depicting a hammer, some planks of milled timber and a bunch of grapes. This is wine country, no doubt about it. Further down the road, the Steels Creek turn-off is littered with signs for B&Bs and cellar door sales. A drive along the road takes you into the patchwork of vineyards that decorate the slopes rising from the valley as the view opens to a postcard-perfect vista of vines stretching in grids towards the horizon in the east. Some of the vineyards are owned by large corporate wine producers, some are just a few acres tended by families for their own use or for sale to local vignerons to crush for boutique vintages. Of course, where there is good wine, good food tends to follow and the upper Yarra Valley is happy to provide. Breads, pastries, cheeses, cured meats, preserves, condiments, confectionary, ice cream, roasted coffee and specialty teas are all produced locally, aimed at the increasingly sophisticated tastes of visitors from Melbourne and beyond.

These days the upper Yarra Valley ‘foodie’ tourist trail leads weekend gourmands along Steels Creek Road in increasing numbers. With so few reminders of the past still visible in the landscape, however, visitors may not realise they are following well-worn tracks. They might be surprised to learn for instance that their bon vivant forebears were quaffing the local produce as early as 1845, when grapes from vines planted seven years before at Yering by the adventuring Ryrie brothers were crushed for the first local vintage. Why the Scottish lads thought it a good idea to pack vine cuttings in their saddlebags at the start of their many-month trek southwards across the Snowy Mountains to the Yarra Valley is anyone’s guess. Even more curious is how they managed to keep the tender young plants alive, when their first priority must surely have been to the 250 head of cattle they were droving across the highest mountain range in Australia.³ No doubt they gave the job of nurseryman to one of the four convict stockmen they brought with them. The brothers had carefully selected two grape varieties to carry, the Black Cluster of Hamburg and a white grape called Sweetwater, although there had been plenty to choose from. By the time the Ryries were packing their bags, the canny entrepreneurs John and Elizabeth Macarthur were offering 33 different seedling varieties for sale from their Camden Park Estate Nursery, 70 km south-west of Sydney. For those who could afford it, wine was the drink of the day in the mid-19th century and there was a growing market for local product that could sidestep the high costs of importation. William, Donald and James Ryrie clearly gained inspiration from the experiments that had been carried out in the Sydney basin. The 1800 litres of wine Gregory Blaxland had shipped to London, for example, had won the coveted Gold Ceres Medal at the Royal Society of Arts.⁴ If the venture went well, there was money to be made. Sadly, it was not an entirely successful experiment. Although they stumbled into a perfect environment for growing grapes, their flourishing vines did not lead to anything drinkable and opinion about their winemaking skills was not complimentary, despite the intervention of expert vigneron James Dardel. As wine producers, the brothers made great cattle farmers.

Scene at Yering – gathering grapes H.L. van den Houten 1875. An early depiction of the Ryrie property on the Upper Yarra River, not far from the Steels Creek confluence. The vineyards are in the foreground, behind the building.⁵

Today the Ryries are celebrated locally not as pioneers of the wine industry but as the first white men to set up camp in the area. This is the layer of history where the story most often begins; the time ‘before the Ryries’ is considered prehistory – the domain of archaeology or even early anthropology. This moment of beginning, however, belongs exclusively to the immigrants for whom it was a moment of arrival; for the Indigenous people already living in the valley and surrounding areas it was a moment of interruption. Whatever direction they were travelling from, however, the two tribes – the immigrants and the locals – met and engaged, and that moment has left deep traces. The refined cattlemen instincts of the Ryrie brothers led them to a house site a mile or two from the entrance to the Steels Creek valley in 1838 and before long they had taken up a grazing licence on a huge 43 000 acre run. The name they chose for their property ‘Yering’, means ‘scrubby bush’ in the local Woiwurrung language. Yering is no random selection but a word that accurately describes the type of marshland they nominated for their house site.⁶ There must have been a conversation of sorts with the local people, maybe even a sustained friendship, for this word to have crossed the border into the immigrant world. Perhaps a few supplies were shared, a trade of tools or even chitchat about the weather: if there is any topic that can bridge the gap between farmers of different backgrounds, it’s the weather. But it was hard for the newcomers to hear the cadences and rhythms of the old language with any real understanding. Although the Ryries took on the word yering as the name of their property, other clues were missed and the opportunity to base their new lives on millennia of Wurundjeri local knowledge was lost.

If the Ryries’ linguistic curiosity laid down the first layer of immigrant history, the next was marked on maps and pegged on the ground by the first title holders of the Steels Creek valley – Mr John Dickson (for whom the next-door valley of Dixons Creek is named) who soon after sold it to Mr William Bell and his brother-in-law and business partner Mr Thomas Armstrong.⁷ There would be no experiments with grapes for these gents. They were happy to leave the experiments in wine growing to the minor Swiss aristocrats who had taken over the vineyards at Yering from the Ryrie Brothers (and who subsequently met with huge success).⁸ The Steels Creek valley, however, would have made a perfect free-range cattle pen and the rumour persists that the first generation of squatters made use of it. Not more than a half day’s ride from end to end, with an escarpment on two sides, clean water in the creek and native grasses on the flatlands, the valley needed only a rudimentary fence across the southern end to secure the stock in a perfectly appointed ‘paddock’. Strictly sheep and cattle men, Bell and Armstrong set about stocking their property with herds of valuable European breeds, as well as their much-loved Clydesdale horses. The animals were both ties to their homelands, the core of the farming practices they knew so well, and the foundations from which to grow the fortunes they hoped for in the new land.

The marshy Wurundjeri country these early immigrants found themselves in was no doubt strange in many ways, but the farming of sheep and cattle was a cultural and economic touchstone that anchored them from the start. Focused by concern for their animals, the strangeness of the environment would have quickly reduced to matters of grazing potential, water location and other much chewed-over farming lore. It was the animals themselves that straddled the real border between the known and unknown. As they took their first steps along the valley floor, the hard hooves of the cattle would have bitten into the silty soil, so different from the soft pads of the marsupials whose tracks threaded through the bush. As the sheep snuffled and nibbled at the grasses and seeds, they would have trampled the tubers of the Microseris lanceolata, the nutritious yam daisy that grows along the creek banks, known by the Woiwurrung as murnong, a vital element of the local diet. They would have pulled at the clusters of