Currents, confluence and changing tides
Expansive and serene to freeway drivers, the Swan River and its disciples are roused by barometric change. Late in the sailing season, heavy jarrah Herreshoff sloops surf waves mid-river on a Saturday afternoon south-westerly that has built up from little more than a light draft down the Canning an hour earlier and swung west post-start after the thump of diesel engines has faded.
But now, a metre-high face, breaks at the stern and rolls along the hull of 28ft Nerrima in a downwind rhythm of wave and wash. The wind is eighteen knots as the boat speed accelerates to more than fifty jellyfish per hour. All eyes are to the front, bar one pair, squinting skyward, hand and sheet tension tease the flicking lip of a flighty spinnaker. This H28 yacht and its crew are part of a unique Australian fleet which has tacked Swan tides over more than 55 years. The routine is not new, the result might be.
There’s a complex surface tension at work, a ‘darbarling’ [1] resonance with earlier sailors – all of them. The ambitious Dutch, French scientists, English optimists, the greedy, the desperate, the mad and unsettled settlers. The local Noongar people never had a need for boats or those in them. The river allows sailors to yell and bob and lean, and spits them out when misjudgement sends them under.
Our artists reveal the often unseen, aesthetic and emotional essence of the riverscape, while sensitive newcomers to Perth often describe the presence of a quiet discomfort in the landscape that’s difficult to articulate.
From the Waugyl’s twists and turns, to protection from prevailing weather conditions, to family events; as the practice lane for Rottnest and English Channel swims, as a church and community venue, our spectacular riverscape holds more than 450 individual sites of significance including the river itself. Together they form exceptional and outstanding value attached to the overall cultural landscape comprising a weave of natural, Noongar, historic, spiritual, emotional and social threads. Derbarl Yerrigan Swan River stories run long and deep in community memory.
The Swan River determined the location of the Western Australian capital. In 2004, it was declared the first heritage icon by the Gallop Labor Government. This year, the 190th anniversary of the foundation of Perth offers a chance to create new affection for our precious river – the essential vitality of where we live – home to the world’s oldest culture, gateway to an internationally recognised biodiversity hotspot, heart of a journey towards the 2029 bicentenary.
As a spiritual place and physical resource, the riverscape is ancient, powerful and underestimated. It’s time for the river to be re-imagined for social, environmental and economic benefit and to contribute again to the wellbeing of Perth’s entire community. Perth is ready to better understand its past and present environment, its people, its diverse ecologies and challenges, and what it means to live here, by the River.
[Written for Tides:Swan River Stories Bidjoo bidjoo Derbarl Yerigan bardip, City of Perth]
[1] Jennifer Kornberger, “The Lower Lands Poetry, IV. The River”, 2013.