Summary

A boat or ketch, moored on the McArthur River, with a group of Aboriginal men and children on the riverbank. A ketch is a sailing craft with two masts and its identifying feature is that the mainmast is taller of the two. This might possibly be the 'Venture' which is also featured in other photographs taken by Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen. Spencer and Gillen arrived at the final camp located at Borroloola on November 2, 1901. They remained there for approximately two months and their departure on the 8th of February 1902, marked the end of their extraordinary 1901-1902 expedition. In his diary of August 1901 to February 1902, Spencer describes the country as they approached and eventually sighted Borroloola, 'At length we have come to the end of our journey across and are now near to the shores of the gulf......We started off at a quarter to six soon after the sun had risen and rode on a miserable plain with gum trees and grasshoppers and nothing else...After a time there were only scattered gums and then across the plain covered with dry yellow grass stalks we could see a dark belt of trees bordering the Macarthur (sic) River. Then about a mile away from the river we saw the roofs of three corrugated iron houses which indicated the important city of Borroloola.....Borroloola is a kind of central port for all this part of the world. Stores come round here to the mouth of the river from Port Darwin and outlying stations for some one or two hundred miles around.....' (pp.87-88).

Physical Description

Silver gelatin emulsion. Half plate.

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