3.4 Fieldwork

As I have stated, I was not able to have in-depth interviews with all groups. It seemed inappropriate to approach a tourist while they were, for instance, hiking, to have a deep discussion. I opted instead for informal interviews and unobtrusive observations. They provided insights into the average visitor, the demographic that will actually experience the proposed landscape intervention. Unlike the interviewees referred to in Section 3.1, these visitors often did not have a long-standing relationship with the landscape.

While doing the offered activities, such as hiking up to the Tasman Glacier Viewpoint, going on a boat tour on the Tasman Lake, and doing a heli-tour up to the Haupapa/Tasman Glacier itself, I made observations and had light conversations with other visitors. See Figure 3-4 below for observations at the viewpoint. For most visitors, the area was a novel attraction, and unless they had received information from a guide, they were relatively uninformed. They also arrived with their own expectations that were not matched with reality. The inherent paradoxes in the visitors’ conversations and behaviours were notable:

· Although people cared, they were on vacation.

· Although the glacier was retreating, they were incredibly excited to fly over it and stand on it.

· Although the Haupapa/Tasman Glacier was awe-inspiring and almost incomprehensibly large, visitors were slightly disappointed that it was so far away.

· Although the lake was huge, they wanted to know why it was brown and not blue.

I heard the most mundane comments to the most moving expressions of concern for the environment. I synthesized these paradoxical quotes into an interpretive map of the Tasman Glacier Viewpoint site (Figure 3-3 on the previous page).

Figure 3-4. Observations at the Tasman Glacier Viewpoint site.