McKenzie's legend comes alive

The truth behind the legend of alleged sheep rustler James McKenzie is murky.

Did he really steal 1000 sheep from the Rhodes brothers' run at Levels or was he the scapegoat for a crime committed by a mysterious man who paid him to drive the sheep south?

McKenzie, a 5-foot 11-inch (180cm), Scot with light-coloured hair, small grey eyes, a large aquiline nose, and a long thin face has inspired books, both history and fiction, folksongs and poems. Now he is inspiring an intrepid journey into the heart of the territory which bears his name.

To mark the man, and his place in South Canterbury history, the Timaru Herald will undertake a Mackenzie Country adventure. Inspired by his summertime reading material, OA Gillespie's South Canterbury - A record of settlement, the editor called for volunteers to go on the trail of the Scottish vagabond.

His orders were vague: Walk from Taiko, where McKenzie allegedly nicked the sheep, to Mackenzie Pass where he was caught; talk to people on the way; by retracing the journey of the region's first character, find the local characters who make up the landscape today. In the spirit of adventure one reporter and one photographer put their hands up for the assignment.

While the initial idea was to walk from Taiko Flat, in the spirit of moving with the times, we've decided to make our journey on bikes. Perhaps McKenzie would have stolen one of those too, if he'd had the opportunity.

Our route roughly traces McKenzie's trek – from Taiko to Cave, to Mt Dalgety and through the pass and all the way to Tekapo, where a memorial commemorating the hard work of collie dogs in the district is also a reminder of another important character in the legend – his dog Friday.

If you're unaware of the Mackenzie lesson, here's a quick refresher.

On the morning of March 1, 1855, two Maori shepherds working for the Rhodes brothers, who owned a large run at Levels, discovered the flock of sheep they were tending had disappeared.

Taiko and Seventeen, as the shepherds were known, traced the flock to Mt Misery behind Cave, where Seventeen ran to fetch the farm overseer, John Sidebottom, telling him, "the Scotch-man had taken the sheep".

For three days the trio tracked the missing flock, back and forth across creeks and riverbeds, finding hoofprints of sheep, tufts of wool caught on matagouri, and evidence that up to three men, a bullock and a dog had also travelled the same way.

According to Sidebottom on March 4, toward dusk, they reached the summit of a pass which led to a "tussock-covered plain, backed by high snowy mountains". On the other side of the pass, they found the sheep – and McKenzie.

The men captured McKenzie, but he escaped that night – only to be captured 11 days later in Lyttelton, where he was put on trial, found guilty of sheep rustling and sentenced to five years' hard labour.

He was sentenced on April 12, 1855 but by June had escaped and been recaptured twice.

McKenzie's story doesn't end with him languishing in prison.

Doubts have been raised about how much of the trial McKenzie understood. How well did he understand English? Should he have had a Gaelic interpreter? Did he get a fair hearing?

According to South Canterbury - A Record of Settlement, McKenzie was a "nervous excitable man, who had neither lawyer to plead on his behalf nor an interpreter to clarify any misundertandings".

He was befriended by a man of considerable standing in the community and wrote a lengthy petition to the Governor seeking a pardon. In the petition, McKenzie offered another story – one that wasn't presented at his trial. He claimed to have been paid by a man to drive sheep from Canterbury to Otago. The man, called Mossman, he said, collected the sheep on March 1 "but from whom he procured them your petitioner could not tell". They travelled for several days, before McKenzie claimed to have fallen ill and needed to stop.

Mossman left their camp to head to the top of a hill then returned in haste to tell McKenzie he had done "a very bad job". "I have stolen these sheep and the owner is coming."

After a scuffle, in which McKenzie alleges Mossman pulled a pistol, he absconded, leaving McKenzie to take the rap.

McKenzie won his freedom in January 1856. He left the Lyttelton jail and paid his passage to Melbourne.

What happened to him after that is a mystery, but since then his legend has grown.

Even the fate of his dog, which was "credited with remarkable powers of understanding" has become woven inextricably into the legend. Did Friday go south after the trial? Was the dog shot? Or taken in by George Rhodes, and subsequently became his favourite farm dog?

After 155 years, two prison escapes and a pardon, it is probably okay to drop the alleged. McKenzie's trek into South Canterbury's uncharted land opened the door to exploration and development and the colourful characters who live there today. This adventure is less about "getting there" than who we meet on the way; so we're taking our time and taking things at a leisurely pace.

So if you see two cyclists huffing and puffing along some back roads to Tekapo this week, feel free to stop for a natter.

- © Fairfax NZ News