Tim Saunders
Bushline: A memoir by Robbie Burton (Potton & Burton, 2022), 257pp, $39.99
Mountain literature has a long history in this country. It is a genre enjoyed by both experienced travellers and armchair adventurers, and there is something about backcountry tales that reflects our spirit and soul. The desire to interpret our outdoor exploits is often strong. Writing about nature is really writing about the world and our place in it, and when confronted by something bigger than ourselves—mountains, lakes and forests—it is only human to want to capture it in words; to attempt to define the ineffable and describe the indescribable.
Robbie Burton has spent a lifetime producing books that do this and, as a result, Potton & Burton has become one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest independent publishers. In his memoir, Bushline, he writes about his journey from a childhood in Nelson to an almost accidental career in the book industry, as well as his life in the mountains.
Bushline was originally intended to be a private memoir produced for the author’s family on his sixtieth birthday. Absent fathers are renowned for leaving unanswered questions, and it was Burton’s wish to ensure his sons knew their ‘everyday father’s’ backstory. The initial manuscript focussed on Burton’s life in the outdoors but has been expanded to include his working life as a publisher and the stories behind many of the books he has facilitated. As a result, the book is conversational in tone, as if we are reading the work of someone we know.
Burton grew up near nature. Kahurangi and Abel Tasman National Parks were close at hand, and his love of wild places was nurtured by adventurous family members. These early experiences fed what would become a passion for the outdoors and his eventual work bringing the landscapes of New Zealand to homes around the world.
School and university took second place to Burton’s early adventures in the backcountry, where he met photographer and future business partner Craig Potton. The author describes in detail some of his formative experiences in the outdoors, including a gruelling grand traverse of the Southern Alps, starting in Fiordland and ending months later in Nelson Lakes National Park. The journey was character-building but also seeded an enduring affinity for leadership and organisation, which stood him in good stead for bringing backcountry stories to life:
Through the simple privilege of spending so long in a mountain wilderness, I came to know the unadorned pleasure of feeling the daily rhythms slow down as the weeks gradually passed. I developed an ease and a belonging in these often harsh places, and my eyes became far keener to both the magnificence and the detail of what surrounded us. But perhaps most powerfully, I was touched on occasion by a stillness, a quiet that remains a beacon I have spent much of the rest of my adult life chasing.
The names Burton and Potton have been synonymous with high-quality photographic books on New Zealand for decades. Where whole sections of bookshops were devoted to ‘Pictorial New Zealand’, publications by Craig Potton Publishing seemed to fill the majority of the shelves. Their photo books became a staple of souvenir and gift shops, and their international reputation contributed to the country’s tourism boom.
But under the guidance of Robbie Burton, the publishing house became more than just calendars and tomes of lush photographs of mountains and forests. The company took on the responsibility of capturing New Zealand’s natural history and humanity’s place within the wider landscape.
Burton knew nothing about the publishing industry when he joined his tramping companion Craig Potton as managing editor and publisher in the photographer’s fledgling business. After completing the traverse and making the wilderness his second home, Burton became involved in environmental activism with the Native Forest Action Council and then worked for seven years in community arts until Potton took him to lunch and offered him the job that would change his life:
It will not be a surprise then that on my first day alone in the office, and after Craig disappeared following his usual brief morning visit, I wondered what on earth I had done. I had no idea where to start, and neither, it seemed, did Craig. It was a difficult way to begin, floundering around trying to fill up my days while faking some degree of confidence.
It was a steep learning curve, and Burton admits to many mistakes along the way. But the skills he gathered from his wilderness adventures gave him the courage to forge ahead, and the rich history of those who explored the wild places in the past inspired him to dig deeper into the country’s ethos.
It is not uncommon to be visited by ghosts in the wilderness. To tread the quiet trails and shelter in backcountry huts is to witness the unexplained echoes of people who have preceded us. Sometimes it is just detritus left by careless trampers, but then there are the shadows, the eerie feeling that someone is watching, and occasionally disembodied voices. These ghosts are usually just reflections—tricks of snow and light and tired brains—a need to fill in the gaps and silences when we are away from civilisation. They are the stories that creep around the edge of the campfire and become part of our collective memory.
These voices and stories came to Burton through the classic writings of local adventurers and explorers, and the accounts of exploits in the mountains and forests when they were still untouched. In Bushline, he chronicles the history of publishing books about the outdoors and their place in New Zealand’s culture:
The persona of the bookish tramper and mountaineer, literate and by implication reflective about the outdoor experience, had emerged in my twenties as territory that had considerable appeal. I read widely about tramping and mountaineering from all over the world, but was especially drawn to reading and collecting anything I could find about adventuring on my back doorstep.
To read historical accounts of exploring and experiencing New Zealand’s outdoors is to slip back in time, and it is not just an exercise in pitting our modern adventures—with our maps and improved equipment—with the explorers of the past. These accounts also give us glimpses into how the wilderness has changed—birdsong, climate change, deforestation. To preserve these books is important, and this is also why publishing new books about New Zealand’s natural world is imperative—it gives a snapshot to future generations of how things are right now, how things are changing, and why we need to work so hard to protect our natural spaces.
Burton acknowledges that these voices from the past influenced his future as a publisher, driving him to steer the publishing company in new directions. Although the photographic books kept the company viable, Burton was able to commission books on history and culture, as well as lifestyle, poetry and children’s books. Through Burton’s leadership, honed during his years in community arts, he helped build the business into an ethical and venerated entity well known for its synergetic relationship with its authors. Perhaps the biggest change in direction was when Burton published the books of investigative journalist Nicky Hagar.
Hagar’s books were a turning point for Burton and the publishing company and represented a loss of innocence for the book industry in New Zealand. The first, Secret Power, centred around the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and had international repercussions. Subsequent publications caused headaches for a number of New Zealand’s political parties, with results that ranged from destroying National’s election campaign to Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark calling journalist John Campbell a ‘sanctimonious little creep’ on live TV.
Burton details the level of secrecy the publishing company must create to protect the publication of each of Hagar’s books to avoid injunctions, and how the books are produced at breakneck speed to reduce the chance of being discovered:
After the book had been written, Nicky would work intensively alongside an editor over a week or two; I would lay out and proofread the book in two or three days, and then print in absolute secrecy. When printed, we would drop them via overnight courier into bookshops nationwide without any prior warning, explaining to booksellers why we were doing this and offering to take back at our expense any they didn’t want. It meant that the book was already available to readers just as Nicky started to create a media firestorm thereby significantly reducing the window for legal action to be successfully launched.
Although Burton writes candidly about the many books he has published during his life, it is surprising there are no images of their covers or artwork. This may seem like an oversight, but was a deliberate choice by the author, who thought their inclusion would take the focus away from the rest of the book. Bushline includes a number of photos from the author’s private collection as well as from Craig Potton, but surprisingly for the publisher of high-quality pictorial books, there are no images that leap off the page. Fortunately, this lack of visual representation is made up for by Burton’s descriptive prose and conversational tone.
Robbie Burton admits he is an ‘accidental publisher’. Craig Potton acknowledged Burton’s outstanding work in 2015 by renaming the company Potton & Burton. Burton’s core values have never changed—to tell our stories and protect our taonga. In Bushline, he writes lyrically about the outdoors that inspires him and the books that have defined his professional life. It is a book about how his life has been shaped by New Zealand’s wild landscapes and how he has found his place in the world. It is a welcome addition to the voices of the wilderness.
TIM SAUNDERS is a farmer who has had poetry and short stories published in New Zealand and around the world. He was shortlisted for the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. His books include This Farming Life (Allen & Unwin, 2020) and Under a Big Sky (Allen & Unwin, 2022).
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