THE HERRICK CONNECTION AND THE MYSTERY OF MOOSE LAKE
Instead, it’s the compelling story of two identical twins, two Fiordland moose heads and a trip back to historical roots.
As with many trips, this one began with a phone call, but a most unexpected one, I must admit. It was a call from my old dentist in Taupo, Chris Casswell, and she wasn’t calling to ask about the present state of my teeth. In the past, in my old meat-hunting days in Fiordland, I’d neglected them with the carelessness of youth and paid the price in more ways than one. I always felt a bit guilty when I visited her, over my teeth and the impending state of my bank account.
The call was good news - not some miracle cure for failing teeth, but the invitation to take her two grandchildren, Eddie and Jono, identical 16 year old twins, into Herrick Creek, in Wet Jacket Arm, south-west Fiordland, for five days in late January. The connection between them and Herrick Creek? Well, Herrick Creek was named after Eddie Herrick, who shot one of his two trophy bull moose there in 1934. Considering only three bull moose in total were shot in NZ, this was no mean feat. He shot the other up the Seaforth River in 1929. The young men are Eddie Herrick’s great-great-grandsons and they wanted to go to the places where their famous forbear had inscribed his name into the annals of New Zealand hunting history. I’d already been to Herrick Creek with my son Tim, in our first visit to Dusky in 2011, when we began our search for
