Eastern Grass Owl (Tyto Capensis)

In a recessed seating  area outside the Hinchinbrook Shire Council Building is a work of art – the first of two public mosaic installations completed by Ingham’s mosaic artist group. This mosaic features those things that are iconic about the Shire.  The eye is drawn to the centre of the art work where stools of cane stand proudly in front of the mighty Herbert River and a patch work of cane fields. A full moon glows in the sky as an owl swoops through the night sky. The owl is the endangered eastern grass owl (Tyto Capensis) taking flight on dusk from its grassy habitat.  Tyto is reputed to be one of Australia’s largest urban wetland rehabilitation of a naturally occurring, but previously degraded swamp and bushland and is named for the eastern grass owl. Cinematographer and naturalist John Young, frequently referred to as the Birdman, highlighted the uniqueness and fragility of the fauna of the Herbert River Valley. His personal vision instigated the Tyto Wetlands, a concept to which he gave design advice and provided images for the visitor centre.  As a result Tyto, today, is important to the conservation of local species providing a healthy ecosystem in close access to the town of Ingham and draws avid bird watchers keen to catch a glimpse of the eastern grass owl in flight.

Ramon Jayo, an historic election

The Hinchinbrook Shire Council elections of 2016 will go down in history as a momentous occasion for the Spanish Basque community of the Hinchinbrook Shire. Ramon Jayo, son of Spanish Basque immigrants, Pilar and Felix Jayo, has been elected Mayor in a resounding victory. As the Spanish Basque community in Australia is most numerous in Queensland it is possible that he is the first Mayor of Spanish Basque heritage in any Queensland electorate, possibly, Australian electorate.

The first Basque believed to have arrived in Queensland in 1882 and the first to arrive in the Herbert River district was Aniceto Menchaca, who came to Sydney in 1907 from Bilbao. He eventually supplied cane to the Victoria Sugar Mill. In 1911 he brought out his brother Juan, and soon others followed including members of the Balanzategui, Badiola, Elortegui and Mendiolea families. Thus started a pattern of migration from the Basque Country that would have important social consequences for this corner of Australia.

Basque migration to the Hinchinbrook Shire peaked between 1958 and 1960 when an assisted passage scheme was devised to augment the previous system of private nomination. These immigrants were destined for the cane fields as cane cutters. Three Bibao based recruitments, resulted in three voyages called by Spanish emigration authorities: Operacion Canguro, Operacion Eucaliptus and Operacion Emu formed the main source of Basque immigrants. In the five voyages between 1958 and 960 387 people identified themselves as Basque. Small numbers of Basque nationals continued coming to Australia into the early 1960s. Many of the Basque cane cutters lived and worked on the farms west of Ingham and of a weekend would gather at Trebonne Hotel run by Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sartoresi. Across from the Hotel was a baker’s shop run by two brothers, Jose Marie and Felix Jayo. They and their friend Albert Urberuaga saw the potential for a fronton court in the grounds of the hotel on which could be played the popular national game, pelota mano.  With the agreement of Joe Sartoresi the fronton was built in 1959. Felix Jayo and his brother Jose Maria Jayo played Juan Crux Arriaga and Tomas Monasterio in the exhibition match. Felix and Jose Maria won!

For nearly a decade the froton attracted both single men and families of a Friday night and on Saturdays and Sunday. Up to 200 people could gather, particularly on nights when there was dancing and a barbecue organized. Today, the fronton is no longer formally used and there is little if no Basque migration to the Hinchinbrook Shire.

Felix Jayo, Jose Maria Jayo, Pasqual Badiola, Tomas Monasterio, Juan Arriaga and Javier Urberuaga (child)

(Source: Albert Urberuaga and Juan Mendiolea)

The Shire is privileged therefore, to still have a community of Basque immigrants and their descendants, descendants who are actively proud of their heritage. The community still gathers monthly at the Basque Club in Townsville. The fronton still stands: a tangible reminder of the courage, hard work and hopes of their forebears. And now, in March 2016, the historic election of the son of Spanish Basque immigrants as Mayor of the Hinchinbrook Shire can be added to the remarkable record of the Basque diaspora.

Links for fronton Trebonne and heritage status.

http://eheritage.metadata.net/record/QLD-601169

https://environment.ehp.qld.gov.au/heritage-register/detail/?id=601169

http://beretandboina.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/federacion-australiana-de-pelota-vasca.html

Ingham In Summer

Inghamites, in  mid March 2016, swelter in humid heat.  Cyclones threaten as an unseasonably late rain season descends, sending down much needed rain on a parched landscape. All long for winter and cool relief.  In 1927 Jean Douglas Gordon waxed lyrical about Ingham in summer. This poem was published two months after a devastating flood, precipitated by a tropical cyclone which crossed the coast just north of Cairns on February 9, becoming a disastrous rain depression. The Herbert River swelled to such as extent that the river broke its banks sending flood waters coursing down onto the low-lying areas of the Herbert River Valley literally sweeping away everything in its path, A description of the time said the river “poured over the countryside like a drunken demon and bringing death and destruction in its wake.”  There was a tragic loss of life, in excess of 25 in Ingham, 15 in Cardwell and 1 in Townsville. 1 500 horses were calculated to have drowned in the Herbert River Valley, a terrible loss in a farming community that still depended heavily on horses for both field work and transport. Loss of crops, stock and property in the same area was estimated to have been in the vicinity of £300 000. Poet Dan Sheahan articulated the community’s reaction to this disaster in his own inimitable way when he wrote “But pigs will play pianos – and chooks will chew their cud – “Ere Ingham will forget about The ’27 Flood.”

INGHAM IN SUMMER

There is sunshine on the paddocks, there is glory on the hills.

There is beauty on the canefields sweeping west;

There are songs among the rain-trees, there is bustle round the mills,

And round the homestead peace, and love and rest.

There is shadow in the timber where the shy bush creatures hide,

There is quiet where the timber meets the shore;

There is golden wealth in plenty where the branches meet the tide,

And music where the lone sea-breakers roar.

There is sighing in the bamboos as the lost sea breezes wail,

And bleating from the sheepyard on the rise;

There is hurry round the crossroads where they’re sorting out the mail,

And sorrow where the lonely curlew cries.

There’s a cloudless sky above me of a deep and misty blue,

There is golden light and music in the air.

And the beauty of the summer blossoms in my heart anew,

As I see her wondrous beauty everywhere.

SOURCES:

“Hinchinbrook Shire Council Historical Library, River on a Rampage” (A selection of newspaper clippings and reports on the 1927 Flood October, 1968, 11).

Sheahan, D. “The ’27 Flood” in Songs from the Canefields (Ingham: Josephine R. Sheahan, 1972), 84.  

The Sydney Morning Herald, April 30, 1927, 11.

The Valley in flood becomes a veritable sea.  Outlying settlements and townships become isolated and residents flood bound in their homes.

Ingham in flood, 1927. Geo. C. Teitzel Butchers, Herbert Street (From the Hinchinbrook Shire Library Local History Collection)

Horses seeking shelter in flood, 1927. Hinchinbrook Hotel, Lannercost Street. (Shared by Terry Cooper on Lost Ingham and District)

Halifax in flood, 1927 Walton’s Hotel, Macrossan Street (From the Hinchinbrook Shire Library Local History Collection)