The real reason for the
Season is as much about
family as anything else.
Despite the name, Big Dog Island’s not a big place.
You can walk from one side to the other in under an
hour and you won’t break a sweat.
For most of the year you won’t see a soul, either.
The place is uninhabited by humans, except when
the muttonbirds arrive. Then things get busy.
“It’s a seasonal thing,” says playwright Nathan
Maynard. “Just like the birds, we all migrate there
during bird season.”
Muttonbirds are a shearwater, a form of seabird,
and their long migration takes them on a kind
of figure eight route up from the islands of Bass
Strait to Japan, across to Alaska, down past
California to the east coast of Australia and back
over to New Zealand before returning to Tasmania.
Big Dog—or Great Dog to use the official title—is
one of a number of islands where the birds settle
to hatch their chicks, and since time immemorial
they’ve brought humans in for an annual harvest
as well.
“They’re quite remarkable and our fellas have got
a deep connection with them,” says Maynard. “We
harvest the chicks every year for food and oil, and
not so much now but it used to be for the feathers
as well to make quilts.”
The commute is bit easier for the birds than the
humans. Big Dog is part of the Furneaux group
of islands off the north-east of Tasmania. To get
there you’ll have to fly in to Flinders Island to the
north or make your way to Cape Barren Island to
the south, and complete the journey by boat.
On the island are seven sheds used by the families
who travel there each year. The number that head
over for the season fluctuates but the tradition