Brigit van der Kaag - Country can do

The daughter of an Olympic skier-high country farmer father, and artist mother, Brigit van der Kaag was bound to be adventurous, resourceful and headed for the snow.

While her creative side had her planning to study clothing and textiles in Wellington, the lure of Queenstown and good snow was just too much.

Born in Blenheim, the eldest of four, Brigit had an idyllic childhood roaming the hills on Aotea near Molesworth Station in Marlborough, and Mount Possession, near Erewhon, Canterbury. “We had a natural ice rink at the back door and Dad taught us to ski on the back lawn,” she says.

“We had a huge snow one spring. Our covered backyard warmed by a diesel burner was full of lambs and turkey chicks warming in Mum’s vegetable bins,” she grins.

“I remember standing at the top of a tow at Porter Heights looking down and thinking, ‘How do I ski? I can’t!’ with my skis I’d painted blue to feel new,” she laughs. “I pointed them down and off I went.

“Ours were the days of screw on edges, cable bindings and lace-up boots.”

Unfortunately, at 12, her ideal world changed when circumstances meant they moved to Christchurch, Brigit starting at St Margaret’s College – a big transition, but she cleaned up in athletics.

Her dad, who’d skied for NZ at the Olympics in 1960, founded Porter Heights Skifield with some mates. “He’d make us kids sit in the boot of the Statesman car looking behind, rather than put chains on. We were mortified, bouncing up and down in the boot.”

Canterbury Uni was fun – Brigit’s organising skills to the fore during Capping and Orientation Weeks - but studying law wasn’t. Skiing for the University team at Temple Basin, an instructor suggested she instruct at Coronet Peak. “My mother was in South America so in 1979 while she was away I quit my job and headed to Queenstown at 19 to instruct and live with my grandmother.”

One off-season she co-hosted talks about New Zealand in American universities with a uni friend who was doing a thesis. Called ‘Kiwis on Campus’, they spoke to huge crowds of students in amphitheatres at the likes of UCLA, Stanford and Washington State University, fitting some skiing in in between.

Brigit stayed on to travel and visit relatives in Canada, once hitching alone from Vancouver to the Yukon. “I was standing in the middle of a big, lonely road in the middle of nowhere with my canvas backpack and the NZ flag I’d sewn onto it just on dusk waiting for a car to come at 21. That was scary.”

Not as scary as the two close calls she had back in Queenstown driving Kawarau Rafts Landcruisers, towing massive rafts stacked high, into the Skippers Canyon with its 100m cliff drop-offs.

It was the mid-1980s and Brigit had worked for Mount Cook Line and SKIHI as a guide before becoming a rafting van driver. Fortunately, the axle on the large trailer didn’t fall off until she pulled into Shotover Resort. “Another day I had a new van full of people driving into the Oxenbridge Tunnel when a raft guide noticed the wheel was almost off. We’d have definitely gone over the edge.”

Nicknamed ‘Brigit Bramham’, her skills obviously impressed husband of 35 years, Paul van der Kaag, a raft guide at the time.

Brigit also worked in hotels and for NZTP Travel, where she learned from the best – Fae Robertson and Anne Gardiner, before she and Paul bought Impact Screen Prints. “We learned all about small business in Queenstown, working very hard for 25 years, surviving the 1996 financial crash and GFC in 2008 when customers suddenly stopped spending.”

They gradually built up the rundown business, scoring their first major uniform contract from Charlie Phillips at QRC. “He wanted to give us a go and that was a raging success,” Brigit says. Queenstown Primary School and other schools, Real Journeys and Shotover Jet followed, winning the local Chamber of Commerce Small Business Award in 2012. “By the time we sold up in 2015 we had eight major contracts.”

She and Paul then skied Brigit’s childhood club fields for five months, Brigit then launching her ‘Mrs Sew & Sew’ business making bags from the many drawers of jeans she’d saved in the garage. She worked from her studio in the Arts Centre, selling these at the Remarkables Market, also running and overseeing rebranding of the Queenstown Market.

A former Queenstown Arts Council Committee member, Brigit has also done a stint on the Queenstown Primary School Board.

These days she’s loving her community roles, including as a reader writer for those needing assistance in school exams. “They’re incredibly grateful. It’s so rewarding.” Her other buzz comes taking the family labrador, Pipi, on volunteer Therapy Pet duty through St John’s to local libraries, the hospital and care home.

“It’s an honour to help.”