Bruce Douglas - The roots go deep

A great, great nephew of one of Queenstown’s first two doctors, his mother also one of the Wakatipu’s renowned Dagg farming family, Bruce Douglas was born to work the land.

Destined for a career in agricultural science, his two elder brothers initially farming the family’s Cave Farm at Slopehill with Dad, circumstances changed after Bruce’s dad had his fourth hip replacement. Lincoln College graduate Bruce happily stepped into that role.

Mustering on the likes of Mount Soho for Roger Monk followed until in 1978 he scored the manager’s role at the vast, 16,000ha Cecil Peak station, only 22. “My mate Tony Strain and I went over to do a week’s work and I ended up staying 12 years,” he grins.

Big money came in and bought the station in the mid-80s as the next-door playground and sewerage ponds site for a planned, grandiose Canadian Pacific Hotel and championship golf course at neighbouring Walter Peak. Unfortunately, hefty BNZ borrowings right on the cusp of the 1987 share market crash saw the developers go into receivership. “The shepherd and I were working in the yards when a water taxi came over carrying two guys in suits. One was their head accountant who I’d gone through Otago Boys High with. “I said, ‘This doesn’t look good.”

It wasn’t, but Bruce got paid and soon landed a manager’s role up the lake at Mount Creighton Station, barges no longer necessary to load sheep and wool.

“The first 10 to 15 years I did a lot of snow raking (using helicopters) as we had no fences to keep the sheep in.”

Gradually Glenorchy Road was sealed and wife Meryn, who’d managed three kids on Correspondence School on both stations, was able to hand over to the school bus.

Fortunately, Meryn also came from a well-known high-country farming family, the daughter of Routeburn Station’s Wattie Watson. It was just as well she was resilient. A strong rugby player, Bruce’s Wakatipu Seniors team had snatched the greatly prized White Horse Cup off Cromwell the week before their wedding in July. They were defending against Upper Clutha on Bruce and Meryn’s wedding day. “There were only women left at the wedding as 90% of the men had gone down to the Rec Ground to watch the final,” he grins. Groom Bruce abstained but was there on the sideline with his bride and her enthusiastic father who raced the sideline in his suit yelling and cheering. They lost but back to the wedding they all went to celebrate anyway, Bruce making up for it with a honeymoon in New Caledonia.

Fortunately, Bruce’s three uncles, Bill, Jack and Ronnie Dagg made it. They’d all miraculously walked away after a light plane crash over Mount Soho in 1968. The pilot had turned back into the hill during bad weather. “Only the pilot got injured. Somebody gave him a broken nose,” Bruce quips. “I remember being at Arrowtown School and hearing there’d been a plane crash.”

Bruce’s great, great uncle Dr James Douglas built the first Queenstown Hospital at Frankton, Douglas Street named after him. “Not many have been here longer than us,” he says. His grandmother Rose Douglas (Rose Douglas Park) was headmistress at Arrowtown School.

Rugby in winter, eventually playing for Vincent, and making hay for Dad in summer, Bruce was using a 22 to shoot rabbits from age nine. “Just when we were old enough to hold the rifle.”

He wasn’t such a dab hand with fire safety though. He, his younger brother and neighbour Tony Strain set the tree hut on fire when they were smoking in it while his parents were at golf. “Mum and Dad came over the cattlestop and saw the glow. We got a good telling off!”

Pony Club treks meant riding through Queenstown’s main street to Mount Creighton’s old shearers’ quarters for camps, instructor Pip Robins out front leading the parade of 15 through town.

Otago Boys for the sixth and seventh form was a culture shock. Bruce then settling into Lincoln social life for four years, playing for the First XV.

His almost 50 years farming has had its challenges, including no fences and a dilapidated woolshed initially on the rundown Cecil Peak Station. “We’d spent all day bringing sheep back through the Lochy River valley only to discover the fence ended high on the rocky outcrops, the sheep making their way back again at night.” On another occasion the sheep knocked the walls out of the woolshed at night, several hundred escaping.

But Bruce is a dab hand at dog trialling – a top South Island judge and life member serving decades on the Otago Dog Trial Association and Wakatipu Collie Dog Trialling Club. He’s also a life member of the Lake Hayes A & P Association and Lakeside Rugby Club which runs the annual Glenorchy Races, Bruce at the helm for years with other key organisers.

“I just love farming. I enjoy working with stock and I love being my own boss.”