SHIP TO SHORE
NEW ENDEAVOUR: SETTING A FRESH COURSE FOR NATION
IT WAS a voyage that changed our nation – the arrival 250 years ago of Captain James Cook.
And now the Australian National Maritime Museum has launched a major new initiative it hopes will change the nation again.
The program is aimed at both commemorating Cook’s voyage to Australia, as well as marking the impact on Australia’s indigenous peoples.
Through a series of exhibitions around the country, educational projects and outreach events, the program Encounter 2020 will mark the anniversary of Cook’s arrival in Botany Bay before he went on to chart the east coast of Australia.
Central to it will be the lasting impact it had on Australia’s First Peoples and in shaping the country’s future.
Speaking at the Maritime Museum yesterday, the Minister for Indigenous People, Ken Wyatt, said: “Cook’s visit in 1770 is not viewed by all Australians in the same way. For some, it represents a unique and important scientific journey of discovery and, for some, the legacy of the voyage symbolises loss of country, language and culture.
“It is important that messages reflect both perspectives – the view from the ship and the view from the shore. Both are not a contested history – it is a shared history of our nation’s point in time from which we emerge on a journey that realised the way in which we live today.”
As part of the initiative, the replica of Cook's Endeavour will circumnavigate Australia, accompanied by a travelling exhibition, which will set up in each of the 26 ports the ship visits.
Filmmaker Alison Page said she was “thrilled” by the program.
“As part of the indigenous community at Botany Bay, I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of what I believe could be one of the most important and challenging moments in Australia’s history, because it’s going to be the first time that we all come together as a whole nation to learn our true history,” she said. ALISON PAGE COLUMN, PAGE 14