A photo essay about Aotearoa's most inland surfboard shaper is the kind of content that "falls into the lap" of Laura Williamson, editor of the Southern Lakes print journal 1964.
"Regions like this are full of people like that during interesting, unusual things that people from outside the region would be surprised about but we're just kind of used to here."
Fiordland surfboard shaper Paul Roach in the latest issue of the print journal 1964 Photo: Hank Bilous
Laura Williamson, co-founder and editor of the periodical 1964: mountain culture / aotearoa Photo: Supplied
1964 – which covers the culture of remote and rural Aotearoa through a creative lens – has been described by The Guardian as "an example of how print might be reinvented".
1964 launched in December 2019 "right before everything kind of went south" for many print media businesses, yet Williamson says magazines are currently enjoying a bit of a revival.
"I feel like we're sort of riding that wave a little bit."
1964 takes its name from the year Mount Aspiring National Park opened and in the years since has attracted scores of writers, artists and photographers to the Southern Alps, she says.
And the adventurous activities people get up to in these picturesque locations – such as climbing, tramping, skiing and cycling – are creative acts in themselves.
"We kind of wanted to reflect all that in the pages of something tactile and beautiful and yummy."
Williamson does some of the writing for the quarterly journal herself, commissions freelance writers from around the country for other pieces and sometimes "shoulder-taps" locals, too.
Freeskiier Hank Bilous who captures images of Fiordland surfboard shaper Paul Roach in the latest issue of 1964 is someone she's known since he was three years old.
"He said 'Hey, I'd love to write a story about Paul and his work' and and off we went."
One of Williamson's favourite stories from 1964 is Superman fights moa from the first issue.
"It's about a DC comic book from 1973 ['The Last Moa on Earth!'] in which Superman fights a supercharged radioactive moa in the streets of a big city in America."
You can explore 1964 on their website or pick up a hard copy in cafes and bookstores around the Southern Lakes region.
Two panels from 'The Last Moa on Earth!' from DC Action Comics #425, published in 1973 Photo: DC Comics
