Aluminized Bottons

by Max Cannan

I was in New Zealand in 1963 to test the hypothesis of 300 miles lateral displacement on the Alpine Fault on South Island, which had been proposed by Harold Wellman of Victoria University of Wellington. The people at the New Zealand Geological Survey did not accept Wellman's hypothesis: the then newly developing concepts of plate tectonics having not yet reached them. My plan was to compare ultramafic complexes and Permian volcanic sequences on opposite sides of the fault. I was joined in the effort by two graduate students from Victoria University, Richard Walcott and Warwick Prebble.

Part of the work involved collecting specimens in the Olivine Range east of the Cascade River Valley, a very inaccessible location. To reach it we drove to the end of the road at Jackson Bay on the west coast of South Island. There we met Dan Greaney, who lived in a trailer and maintained the dirt road that lead to the Bay from the Haast river.

We spent two nights in a tin shack at Jackson Bay while Dan helped us contact a bush pilot to fly us to a cattle station in the lower valley of the Cascade River, south of Jackson Bay. Our plan was to spend four or five days working out of the station as our base to reach out crops in the Olivine Range, and then walk out to Jackson Bay.

Dan was very congenial, and we became well acquainted with him. He had been a guide on the Milford Track in his younger days and was thoroughly acquainted with the area between Jackson Bay and Milford sound. He proved to be and invaluable source of information on terrain and conditions we would be meeting in our project, especially swampy land we might encounter in the area between the Cascade River and the Jackson River. He had a somewhat rusty bathtub connected to a big water heater, and promised us a bath when we returned.

Upon our arrival at the cattle station we learned to our dismay that the cow hands were planning to drive the herd of cattle located there out of the valley to a place farther north two days hence. The area had recently become National Park land and all domestic animals were being removed from it. The route of the cattle drive was an abandoned old roadway, which is the only way to Jackson Bay from the Cascade River and was our route. The cowboys warned us, (confirming Dan Greaney's warning about swampy land) that the cattle drive would render our route virtually impassable on foot.

We spent the one day available attempting, over incredibly dense dead fall, to reach the outcrops above the tree line. After several hours we gave up and had to content ourselves with collecting a suite of ultramafic specimens from a creek descending the Olivine Range and in the Cascade River. Fortunately, this turned out to be a rather good representative sample of the UM complex, which served well for comparison with the Red Hills UM Complex 300 miles north across the Alpine Fault.

The seventeen mile trip out was strenuous, involving a couple of miles of tussock — jumping balancing sixty pound packs; but all in all, not too bad, considering what it would be like after the cattle drive.

We arrived at Dan's place in the late afternoon, tired, filthy and looking forward to a bath in his tub. It was a major topic of conversation during the last few miles of our trek. Dan greeted us with a look of concern saying, "Hey, you're back awfully early. What happened?" I explained, told him that I thought I had probably succeeded in getting a selection of samples sufficient for my purposes and now was really ready for the promised bath. A pained expression appeared on his face and he said "I wasn't expecting you for another three or four days and I just painted the bath tub with aluminum paint this morning! I'm afraid it's not dry yet."

We checked it and it was still tacky. The three of us fellows consulted with each other and decided if Dan was willing to risk damage to his paint job we'd prefer to have our baths before we sacked out for the night. Dan was agreeable: he fired up the heater and we took our baths. As the senior member was elected to have first shot. The paint was indeed somewhat sticky, but I didn't mind and I tried not to smear the paint around too much. Dick and Warwick followed trying to sit in unblemished areas. The result was that we each came out with a nicely aluminized posterior. Dan didn't mind the damage to his paint job. In fact he said he rather liked the dappled effect we had achieved.

- Max Cannan, Pomona, CA

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