The memoir tells the story of the kind of pioneering spirit that built Australia while, more significantly, commenting on race relations between the whites and Aborigines, criticising the racism of mainstream Australian society while highlighting the destructive impact on the Aborigines of the government policies intended to assist them. Since Daryl Tonkin lived for decades with a rural Aboriginal community he is presented in the text as speaking with the authority of first-hand experience in his countering of these negative perceptions. The memoir is intended to promote greater understanding and sympathy for Aboriginal people while countering widespread negative perceptions. The memoir is meant to be a historical document that sheds light on Australian social history while promoting the cause of Aboriginal reconciliation. It is set in the Gippsland forest in Victoria and it tells the story of a white Australian man (Tonkin) who ran a timber mill and married a local Aboriginal woman and lived in harmony in the bush with the local Aborigines up Jackson’s Track. Daryl Tonkin’s memoir Jackson’s Track (1999) was written with significant assistance from Carolyn London.
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