Obituary: Jon de Vries
Jon de Vries (1954 - 2011)
Not a lot of people in Golden Bay knew of Jon de Vries, who spent only the last few years of his life living at Whanganui Inlet, then at Collingwood. But this innovative and passionate achiever led a most remarkable life – as a polar adventurer, mountaineer, pacifist, environmentalist, educator, photographer and inventor – making a significant contribution to this country.
John was born 12 metres below sea level in the Noordoostelijke Polder district of the Netherlands. His archaeologist and soil-scientist father Sam worked on reclaiming land from the sea, while his social-worker mother Tina assisted the communities who settled there. Both had been involved in the Resistance during the Second World War. Jon’s parents immigrated to New Zealand with him when he was just seven months old, settling first on a remote King Country farm before moving later to another farm near Dargaville. Besides running a small dairy and piggery, they planted one of the first commercial blocks of kiwifruit in the country.
Jon learnt research skills using his parents’ library of 10,000 books (along with 40 boxes of rock and archaeological samples) that they had brought with them. From his uncle he learnt carpentry, fishing and taxidermy. He excelled in climbing and hockey, and was a roadie and musician for a school band that played gigs all over Northland in the weekends.
Although he wanted to study surveying, he also realised he needed to help on the farm, so Jon completed a mechanic apprenticeship nearby at 19, as well as an electronic technician’s qualification by correspondence.
When his parents moved to a small block outside Auckland, Jon towed their books and 40 boxes by tractor to their new farm. He then discovered caving, and for two years based himself at Waitomo where he explored underground, surveying a new five-kilometre cave system and actively helping others to go caving.
It was in January 1976 that he met his future partner, Clare Allen, a friend of his sister, Jan. They set up a house by Wellington’s Botanical Gardens, complete with a big organic garden, chickens and beehives, and Jon became a postie and renovated houses. In 1979, the couple moved to 150 acres of kauri forest and swamp at Ahipara in the Far North, 300m above sea level and overlooking Ninety Mile Beach. Not wishing to disturb the fernbirds by building an access road, they carried the building materials for their one-bedroom house one kiloketre across a swamp. They mixed the hippy life with contract farming, but after two years felt the pull of the mountains and returned to Wellington as a better base for more adventures.
In 1981, the year of the Springbok Tour, the couple joined the protesters. Jon remained a committed pacifist who travelled around trying to prevent violence in the tense standoffs. On the floor of his lounge he designed and constructed the plywood wooden shields that became synonymous with the campaign. His concept was to build them to a high standard, and that they should neither be able to injure those using them nor the police they were opposing.
In 1982, Clare moved to Christchurch to begin her teacher training in Outdoor Education while Jon finished a big renovation in Kelburn. They met on weekends to go climbing. Jon’s attitude was to attempt nothing by halves. He wanted to tackle the hardest challenge available. In mountaineering and rock-climbing this became the Caroline Face on Mt Cook and big wall climbs in the Yosemite, USA, including an eight-day route called the Pacific Ocean Wall where Jon slept on portable hanging ledges.
The following year Jon attempted Uli Biaho, a tower near K2 in Pakistan and itself a 20-day wall climb, but adverse weather conditions meant they couldn’t finish. One morning, after sleeping outdoors on a glacier at 14,000ft, he found his sleeping bag surrounded by the footprints of a snow leopard.
Jon loved the culture and people of Pakistan. He travelled solo for a few months before working at Pheriche hospital, close to Everest Base camp, where he set up their solar water heating system.
Late in 1984, Jon returned to Mount Cook with Clare where he continued Search and Rescue work and maintenance of huts, bridges and buildings in the park. His most ambitious project was Kelman Hut – then the biggest and highest hut at 2500m. He built it first in the village, then pulled it apart to helicopter it to the head of the Tasman Glacier. However, the strops broke during the flight and a large part of the hut ended up at the bottom of Tasman Glacier Lake. The rebuilt hut was assembled on site a year later, Jon working with teams of park workers in often adverse weather conditions 13 days at a time while living in a small garden shed.
Jon joined the NZ Antarctic programme in 1990, spending two summers at Scott Base running field training and SAR, and four summers leading teams of geologists, seismic surveying and drilling for core samples on the polar plateau. Using his mechanical skills he hooked up their drilling rigs with compressed air – a method he invented and which is now used all over the world. The moss bed he discovered 500km from the pole represents the southernmost plant material ever discovered.
Jon’s biggest expedition was as field leader for a seismic survey of the polar ice cap, involving seven Hercules full of equipment, snowcats and explosives. In those years he made many friends among the world’s leading scientists.
In Wellington after each expedition, Jon helped Clare run third form camps for 250 boys. He loved helping students to develop their skills and build their self-esteem on the rock faces. The boys called him “Deep Freeze” or “Iceman”, and he would entertain them with stories of his Antarctica work and climbing trips. He would go on to take his own senior rock-climbing courses and developed a NCEA standard for rock-climbing in secondary schools.
After building the highest (and arguably most geometrically challenging) house overlooking Island Bay in Wellington, the couple moved into their 40ft steel yacht, Freedom, fitting it out for ocean voyaging. On their first trip to French Polynesia they were caught in a hurricane and retreated to New Zealand to fix gear.
In September 2001, Jon discovered he had a unique muscle cancer. Ten years of major operations, radiation treatment in Melbourne and chemotherapy back home didn’t stop him squeezing in more adventures. Over 2003 and 2004 he was cycle-training 12,000km annually, clocking up impressive times. In a 200km hill race around Coromandel, he set the fastest time for the BOP/Waikato region, beating young guns half his age.
Later he and Clare became rangers on Stephens Island, where for three years they grew their own food, fished, fixed machinery and buildings, did research and raised 12,000 trees every year. To them it was paradise. The Department of Conservation then appointed Jon to run the bigger Maud Island, where they enjoyed working on the takahe and kakariki breeding programmes.
By 2008, Jon’s cancer had invaded his lungs. They moved to land on Whanganui Inlet, then to another “paradise”, a large overgrown section in Gibbs Road, Collingwood. Building their dream home and garden became Jon’s final project. He loved solar power systems, and the last was his best of many he designed and built. There at Collingwood, he thought he was the luckiest person alive, surrounded by a wonderful community who rallied to support them in his last months.
He was meticulous to the end. His last words to Clare just before he died were “After I’m gone, make sure you turn these oxygen tanks off.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
