The Ōtepoti Dunedin Heritage Festival is shining the spotlight on many aspects of the city’s heritage throughout October, and having some fun along the way.
Port Chalmers will be a focus this Saturday, as Port Chalmers Historical Society celebrates the reopening of the Port Chalmers Maritime Museum to the public from noon.
Visitors to Port Chalmers might like to combine a look around the museum with a delightfully offbeat Heritage Festival event — a performance of Lewis Carroll’s 1876 classic nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark, at the Rolfe Room, Port Chalmers Library, from 1pm on Saturday.
The dramatic reading will be presented by local actor, improviser and singer Marama Grant, who will dig deep into her repertoire to bring the characters to life, including the Bellman, the Baker, the Butcher, the Beaver and the Snark itself.
A trio of players from the Rare Byrds Consort will lend musical and moral support on recorders and spinet.
Ōtepoti Dunedin Heritage Festival co-ordinator and Rare Byrds member Jonathan Cweorth said it was "of course culturally inappropriate to play renaissance music alongside a late Victorian text", but they were getting round that by "only playing pieces with titles beginning with B — ballets, branles and a bergamasca".
"It’s in the spirit of the poem, and we’re (fairly) confident Carroll would have approved.
"The poem is a wonderful, comic maritime epic, and feels right to be happening in Port Chalmers, right across from the port itself," Mr Cweorth said.
There was also a link with local author and illustrator David Elliot, whose work had been celebrated during the festival and who had illustrated his own version of Carroll’s poem.
Street Tours
After already hosting an array of heritage building tours, the festival will present a series of street tours, showcasing the depth and variety of Dunedin’s history.
These include tours of the city’s Northern and Southern Cemeteries, led by Gregor Campbell, who specialises in tales of darkest Dunedin.
Mr Campbell will also give a more in-depth look at the darker corners of Dunedin’s history at 5.30pm next Tuesday, October 22, as part of the festival’s Talks After Five series.
Local ghost-hunter Andrew Smith will be conducting some of his Haunted Heritage walks, including a special Sea Ghost tour based in Port Chalmers on Sunday, October 27.
The festival will also host tours led by local historian David Murray, author of the Built in Dunedin website.
In his Princes St Strolls on Friday and Sunday, he will share the architectural and social history of what was once one of the busiest commercial and retail areas in the country.
