A Canadian author has written a book about Fairlight Homestead and the tale of one of Riverton’s first settlers, Captain John Howell.
Mari Harpur was born in the American mid-west before moving to Canada where she stayed for the next 40 years.
During this time, she and her husband made frequent holiday trips to Aotearoa, and it was on one of these trips when the country went into lockdown due to COVID.
“My manager Simon said I was going to have a lot of time on my hands and he was living in the Fairlight Homestead.
“He told me the house was going to be a 150 years old and I should write a story about it.”
She then started researching the history of the homestead and its community, resulting in the release of Fairlight: Captain John Howell.
Her family had been in farming and forestry for generations and she enjoyed immersing herself in the environment and trying to better understand it.
“To be able to farm and have forests is very special, especially in New Zealand where it’s just a wonderful place to grow things.
“People are very receptive to agriculture … it’s not only something their parents or grandparents did, it’s happening all over the country and it’s certainly happening in Southland.”
She started looking into the story of Fairlight and John Howell which “launched,” her into phoning around different people in Southland.
“They were so happy to talk, talking about Captain Howell and about their neighbourhood, I was just entranced by the whole thing.”
She said once she started looking further into the history “nothing could stop me”.
“People were so helpful, the Hocken Library and all throughout the South, people were very nice and enthusiastic about history.
“Everybody, as I found out, is an expert on history … and I’m always happy about that because I love to hear people’s opinions.”
When visiting the settlement of Howell, now known as Riverton, she said it was a “very special place”.
“When I got to Riverton I said ‘oh my gosh, this is a maritime community of beauty and fun’ … we’ve made two or three trips to Riverton and I’m always happy to go down there.”
She said writing the book was a good opportunity to showcase the building of Fairlight, and the community that would become Riverton.
“People who lived there were strong, brave and true. It was year after year, family after family.”
The information in the book went beyond Howell and the homestead itself, also telling the story of a resilient community, she said.
“It’s really quite remarkable what they were up against and how they overcame difficulties and had babies, wonderful families and managed to survive snowstorms.”
Seven years in the making, she was happy to see the book out there being read.
“It took too long quite frankly. My other book took three or four years which included research too.
“This book has just been so special … I struggled through one thing after another and it took seven years, but now it’s out of the playpen.”
She said it was “such a relief,” to finally have the book out there and had already received positive feedback from readers.
“I never thought I’d see this day, but it’s out there now and people seem to like it.”
For now, she would be focused on marketing the book, but she said she always has ideas for new books.
“I’m not dying to start another book, but my nephew is keen to do something.
“We’ll just have to see what happens and how this goes … oddly enough I don’t have any books in North America to sell because they’re all in New Zealand.”