6/11-12 Davidson Whaling Station

Most of the Land Arts crew spent the last days at Pambula Lake in a historic whaling station. The text below is from Cedra about the station (also posted in A Letter from Cedra). Her pics of Eden/Pambula and the whaling station can be found on her Flickr set.

The station was a drafty, rambling old wooden cabin dating from the 1880s. Sometime in the last fifty years it had gotten some limited electrical wiring, which could be brought humming to life for a couple of hours at a time by starting up a generator in a nearby shed; and there was a tap connected to the cisterns full of rainwater that got channeled off the roofs of the buildings, and a drop toilet just a few seconds' walk down the hill; and there was a wooden couch and a gas fireplace. In other words, it was complete luxury compared to our previous days' conditions! More importantly, though, it was beautiful and creepy and strange, and a great place to photograph and wallow in the history of. There were black and white photos of the families that have inhabited the place over the years, and of slaughtered whales; and there were wild profusions of rambling gardens, and frogs that sang exuberantly all night, their voices bubbling up through the cracks in the floorboards; and there was a long series of steps that led down to a little sheltered stretch of beach, where everyone was drawn to do performative actions and documentation.