The Pacific: In The Wake of Captain Cook
History is taking to the seas and walking in the footsteps of Captain James Cook. 250 years after Cook began his epic exploration of the Pacific, Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, The Piano) journeys in his wake uncovering stories that resonate from those times on both sides of the beach. Sam begins with a disclaimer – he is merely an actor – but the story of Cook, and the impact he has had on the Pacific in the 250 years since his first voyage, has always fascinated him.
Episodes
On the 250th anniversary of Cook leaving Plymouth, Sam Neill visits Tahiti in the first of six episodes to follow Cook’s journey around the Pacific, and hears from Tahitians about what Cook means 250 years on. Sam encounters ardent enthusiasts and practitioners of Tahiti’s vibrant culture. Some of the traditions are old, some new and when lost, he learns, the Tahitians are happy to make them up.
Speaking with historians, activists, artists and locals, Sam delves into a deep history of trade, tradition and turbulent conflict. To his surprise Maori oral memories of Tupaia are more strong and vivid than those of Cook. Reconnecting with lost Polynesian history was far more potent than awe at the foreign goblins.
Sam travels from Botany Bay up the east coast to Cooktown, learning about a country that far from being nobodies’ land was comprehensively inhabited by a well established culture.
Sam visits New Zealand, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Norfolk Island before completing one of Cook’s unfinished ambitions by touching down on Antarctica. For Sam this episode, in a much more intimate way, mirrors what many consider Cook’s greatest achievement, the breadth and extent of the second voyage.
Sam Neill continues to follow the path of the Resolution, again via through New Zealand and Tonga onto Canada and Alaska, experiencing the Pacific as never before.
Back in Australia Sam views an unfinished tapa waistcoat abandoned by Elizabeth Cook after his death – a poignant memento. A larger than life stainless steel sculpture of the man by Micheal Parakowhai is the focus of Sam’s reflections on Cook. Finally on an uninhabited islet in mid- Pacific Sam concludes his journey from being a ‘mere actor’ when he set out to becoming ‘a man of the Pacific.’
