'Ngāi Tahu in the Southern Alps' with Nic Low, 6 pm Thursday 6 February WAITANGI DAY

Nic Low (Ngāi Tahu) is the author of the best-selling Uprising: Walking the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Nic spent years talking to Ngāi Tahu historians, scholars and elders about the iwi’s history in the mountains, then retraced more than a dozen old Māori routes across the Alps on foot, in a bid to bring those histories to life. Join him for a lively account of his walking and climbing expeditions, and why it’s possible to see history rather than wilderness when we look at the peaks.

Venue: AV Theatre, Fiordland National Park Visitors Centre, Lakefront Drive, Te Anau.

Time: Theatre doors open at 5:45 PMTalk starts at 6:00 PM. Note that this event is being run in conjunction with the opening of Te Tiriti—Ruapuke, June 1840 exhibition from 5:00 PM at the Visitors Centre. We would love you to attend both!

Date: WAITANGI DAY, Thursday 6 February 2025

Nic is also giving a talk for younger audiences at 1:30 PM on Friday 7 February at the Fiordland College Gymnasium which is suitable for school years 4+.

Nic Low - Bio

Nic Low (Ngāi Tahu) is a writer, adventurer and arts organiser. He is a regular contributor to New Zealand Geographic magazine, the former Programme Director of the WORD Christchurch Writers Festival and the author of three acclaimed books.

His first book was Arms Race, a collection of mischievous short stories shortlisted for two major Australian prizes. Uprising was a Listener, Your Weekend, Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Book Review book of the year. His latest, Little Doomsdays, with Phil Dadson, is a meditation on arks and time capsules, and explores how previous civilisations tried to preserve what they love when faced with their demise. Former poet laureate Ian Wedde called it “one of the most engaging, inventive and original sequences of writing I’ve read in a long time.”

Nic’s short fiction, essays and criticism have been published widely in Australia and New Zealand. In 2024 he was the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at the University of Canterbury. He is a recipient of the CLNZ Writers’ Award, a Pushcart Prize nominee, an alumnus of the Banff Centre Mountain and Wilderness Writing Program, and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Melbourne. He is also a regular judge of literary prizes, and a founding judge of the Keri Hulme Prize.