Brian Dobbie: New Zealand Hut Hero

by Sam Demas

(Note: this is part of the larger work New Zealand Huts: Notes towards a Country Study)

Few have visited as many NZ huts, and even fewer know as much about the DoC hut system as Brian.  Working in the Recreations and Historic Unit, he is part of the team of DoC staff planning and managing the hut

system at the national level.  Since 1987 Brian has contributed greatly to shaping the development and operation of the world’s largest hut system.  His perspective encompasses a broad understanding of the genesis and infrastructure of the system as a whole, the attendant policy and budget issues, how huts fit into tourism and Kiwi culture, and a deep knowledge of the nitty-gritty of hut operations.  He seems to have been involved in every major controversy and policy decision related to DoC huts, wrote or helped to write the foundational operating documents and procedures, and helped figure out how best to respond to an endless series of budget cuts — and the occasional significant boost in funding — over the years.  And he loves huts: as of early 2018 he had visited 770 of the roughly 962 huts in the DoC hut system.

Brian was designated as my liaison to DoC for my study of NZ huts, and I benefitted enormously from materials he supplied, and from conversations with him and with the people to whom he introduced/pointed me.  Mainly we discussed DoC history, policy and operations, but I made a point of asking about his early influences, his career and his personal likes about huts.  An intelligent and modest fellow, Brian is very careful and clear in explaining complex matters.  While he is a practiced “bureaucrat” with long experience in a large government agency, his personality peeked through a bit in our conversations, and he was willing to speak frankly and sometimes to offer personal opinions.

While we didn’t spend a lot of time together, I got a clear sense of talking with an exemplary public servant who has quietly served his fellow Kiwi’s very well by helping to steer the modern development of their remarkable national hut system.  This brief profile attempts to put a face to the name by sketching in some background about a person who works quietly behind the scenes to maintain access to the bush.

Early influences:

His parents were walkers and keen on outdoor adventures with their four kids.  His father loved visiting different out-of-the-way places, and they roamed the country, mostly using family camping expeditions to set up a base for skiing and tramping into the backcountry.  Tramping the Milford Track in his early teens was a defining experience; he discovered he loved the feel of the pack on his back.  Brian joined the tramping club at his secondary school, and as a Boy Scout he enjoyed going new places with other kids and learning outdoor skills.  At age 19, an 8-day off-track backpacking trip in South Westlands-Landsborough hooked him on camping in the backcountry.

Connection to huts:

Through the tramping club at Victoria University he found a group of university friends who shared his interests.  In postgraduate studies at Aukland University he joined the tramping club and got into alpine instruction, glacier and snow travel.  Huts had become a passion by his mid-twenties.  Brian realized he’d already visited 250-300 huts and was keen to see more.  His mission became to explore different parts of NZ and stay in as many huts as he could.  He loved learning about the quirky features of individual huts, talking with fellow trampers, and reading the log books.  Each encounter yielded greater perspective on huts and more ideas of places to go.  This pattern became a lifelong avocation.  Even today, while he operates behind the scenes, sharing a crowded “open office” workspace in DoC’s Wellington headquarters, he loves best being in the field visiting huts.  Outside of work, he punctuates his personal life with weekend and holiday tramps with his wife around the country.  While he does not list his huts visited on the Hut Bagger website, he keeps adding to his own personal life-list.

Working with DoC huts:

Brian began his career in 1981 as a planner – helping to determine the best uses of Crown Lands — with the Department of Lands and Survey, one of the agencies combined to form DoC in 1987.  Following are just a few of the many initiatives Brian has been involved with over his 31 years with DoC:

• As Principal Conservation Officer for Tourism Brian worked for several years as liaison to the tourism industry and with DoC concessions.
• Soon after the Cave Creek Tragedy (1994) DoC underwent a huge shakeup and Brian moved into “asset management”: the initiative to determine exactly what infrastructure DoC was responsible for, assess its condition, develop plans for maintenance, and develop a computerized system for keeping all this information up to date and to inform budget and planning efforts. The agency dedicated 250 people over three months to scour the country to identify and assess the wide range of huts, bridges, roads, signs, campsites, board walks, etc. it had inherited.  Brian was tasked with the hut side of this work and huts have been his focus since 1995/96.
• In Helen Clark’s second term as Prime Minister DoC received a huge increase in funding with the understanding that DoC would review and update its hut and track standards, and develop detailed plans for ongoing maintenance. This prompted the 2002-2004 “Recreational Opportunity Review” and discussions of the feasibility of maintaining all the huts in the system, in particular those in very bad condition or poorly located.  DoC solicited public input and outside perspective on this controversial topic.  Brian brought together the team of Shaun Barnett, Rob Brown and Geoff Spearpoint as independent voices to analyze the public input and develop a “Citizen’s Audit” of the results.  {Bringing these three together for this purpose appears to be a fortuitous fore-shadowing of their partnership in writing Shelter from the Storm.}
• This audit included observations that a good deal of voluntary hut maintenance was already going on and that there was potential for more. Dobbie cites this finding as sowing the seeds for later emergence of the Backcountry Trust.  The concept of “minimal maintenance” of lesser used huts (as opposed to removal of them) seems to have grown out of this review.  In the end only 50 huts were removed.  Also out of these discussions the Permolat collective emerged as an exemplar in supporting voluntary hut maintenance initiatives.
• Brian wrote the hut service standards and devised the hut inspection process in use today.
• He was part of the discussions that led to the development of Great Walks, and observes that this was done not to attract international visitors, but to protect these stunning tracks from rampant overuse by implementing reservations system and designing them to contain human impacts.
• Brian has worked with architect Ron Pynenburg to write the Hut Procurement Manual, which outlines in great detail building standards and designs for new hut construction. They worked together to develop an amendment to the NZ Building Code that did not exempt huts from the Code, but articulated a set of hut-specific standards.  {This is something we certainly need in USA!}.
• As part of his work Brian seems to do a lot of number crunching designed to help prioritize capital investments and how best to allocate funds for huts and other recreational facilities. He creates life cycle models, cost-benefit analyses, and algorithms for comparing needs and expenditures across different DoC properties.

Because of his broad experience, long service, and keen knowledge, Brian is generally thought of as “the hut guy” within DoC.  As one example of his standing in the hut world, Brian was one of four notables (the others are two former Prime Ministers and the president of the Federated Mountain Clubs) invited to contribute a Foreword to the monumental publication about huts Shelter from the Storm.

Personal perspectives:

Because he has visited so many huts he feels confident that he can see the NZ huts from a users’ perspective.  Brian demurred when asked about his favorite huts and tracks because he tends, like his Dad, to want to always visit new places.  But he offered that the kinds of huts he shows his kids include:

• Smaller huts which are not frequently visited;
• Six bunk huts with a small group of visitors;
• Huts on tops, where you feel on top of the world; and
• Huts above bush line, with wavy tussock and snow an added bonus.

In the end he did mention two specific huts he particularly likes: Dundas Hut in the Taurarua and McKinnon Hut in the Ruahine.  Both are six bunk standard huts.

Like many of his countrymen, he pointed out that Kiwis like their huts simple, a form of “wooden tent” with low level of amenities.  Excerpts from the Foreword that Brian contributed for Shelter From the Storm encapsulate his ethos of service to New Zealand huts:

….These huts belong to the people of New Zealand and outdoor New Zealanders love them.  DOC, too, is committed to huts and many DOC staff value working on huts above all other tasks….Over the years, DOC has done its best to listen to what people want for their huts and has developed ‘service standards’, committing itself to an ongoing inspection regime and a regular maintenance programme….In the twenty-five years since DOC was established, a number of huts have come and gone (not always without controversy), but the backcountry hut network is still remarkably intact and in good heart.