Wild’s founding editor passes
Chris Baxter: 1946–2010
I first met Chris when I was 14. We were coming down from a cliff in the Grampians at the end of the day and Chris was slumped on the side of the road, close to where our car was parked. He was grey-faced, exhausted and hunched over in pain. Despite suffering from a bad bout of sciatica he had been out scoping new routes to climb on cliffs nearby. Many years later, this time sick with cancer, Chris was still out in his beloved Grampians, and still climbing new routes. Right up until near the end of his life, Chris had the hunger to be outdoors and, more than that, to be exploring new ground.
While that day might have been the first time I met Chris, I had heard stories about him many times before. My old man (along with the legendary climber and bushman Reg Williams) actually took the teenage Chris, his brother and another friend on his first trip to Tasmania back in 1965, when they climbed Federation Peak. This was back in the days of A-frame tents (sans floors) and mountain mule packs (the frames of which could hold fuel that was accessed by a little spigot). Apparently the team was stuck in tents for a number of days during bad weather. My dad and Reg were in one tent and the impatient young tyros in another. During a lull in the storm, dad and Reg overheard Chris saying to his companions that they should ditch the older pair because they were slowing them down. At the time Reg and my dad were furious – as the older members they felt responsible for the younger guys – but I just think it shows that even back then, Chris’ desire to get out there, to explore, was a powerful force.
A couple of weeks after first meeting Chris I got to climb with him. We put up a new route at a cliff called Barbican Rocks. It was one of well over a thousand routes that Chris pioneered. What many walkers may not know is that Chris was probably the most active new route activist in Australia. There is barely a cliff in the land where there isn’t a route with Chris’ name on it.
For many years I worked in a climbing gym in Melbourne that he used to visit regularly. Chris was one of those climbers whose passion had outlived most of his own generation, so he usually climbed with an assortment of younger partners. This suited him, as he always liked to hear about what the ‘new wave’ (his terms for younger climbers) was doing. He loved juicy stories, gossip and news.
This passion for stories was evident in Rock and Wild, the magazines that he founded in 1978 and 1981 respectively. Both are the longest running outdoor adventure publications of their kind in Australia. When I first started at Wild Publications in 2007, Chris had been gone a number of years due to his illness, but the signs of his influence were everywhere. From editorial policy to the incredibly complete and detailed manuals on every aspect of the business, Chris’ signature was all around, usually annotated with his initials ‘CB’ in the corner.
Wild and Rock are Chris’ legacy to the outdoor community. Who knows how many people have been inspired to get outdoors by a ragged old copy of Wild, found in a waiting room or picked up at a friend’s house? We could probably work out how many stories have been told throughout the years, but the tentacles of inspiration reaching outwards are harder to quantify. While Wild is unique among outdoor adventure magazines in the time and space it has given to environmental issues, I think it is the inspiration to get into the outdoors, to promote the beauty of the bush, that has had the most profound effect on people’s support for the environment. It is this that will be Chris’ lasting legacy to the bush.
I know that when I took over as editor, Chris had his doubts about whether I was suitable (just as in his editorials, Chris always spoke his mind). He was right to have his doubts – I had only worked in the industry for a year. But what saved me from disaster were the systems in place, the production schedules, the manuals, the documents – nearly all with ‘CB’ stamped in the corner – and indeed the magazines themselves, guiding me through the often hectic cycle of a magazine’s life.
At Chris’ funeral, listening to the eulogies, I realised that I didn’t know Chris that well – we were, after all, from different generations, with different ideas. But the passion he had for the outdoors is something that we both shared and hopefully all future editors of the magazines will share. Without a love for the bush an outdoor magazine is a hollow, meaningless vessel – it is hard to justify the trees for the paper it is printed on. But if it breathes a passion for the outdoors, if it is inspired and inspiring, then I believe it is worth something, because I still believe in that old cliché, as I think Chris did: in our love of wild places lies the preservation of them.
Our sincere condolences go out to Chris’ wife Sue and all his family, from all the team here at Prime Creative Media.
Ross Taylor
editorial@wild.com.au
