John Paul Ryan grew up on a farm on the edge of the Hokonui Hills in northern Southland, and he has never quite been able to leave them behind. After seven years of walking, reading and writing, the Gore teacher has turned that lifelong pull into a book.

A Place Made for You? A conversation about living with the land has been published by Otago University Press as part of its Ka Haea Te Ata collection, a series of books on issues of national importance. Ryan, who teaches religious education at St Peter's College, told the Otago Daily Times the book follows the hills "from its geological beginnings through to the way that humans have interacted with it". He hopes it will prompt readers to "think again about what are our duties and . . . obligations to the plants, the animals [and] the places that we live alongside".

That question is why a book about a modest range of hills east of Gore reaches beyond the district. The publisher describes the Hokonui as a landscape quite unlike the famous tourist drawcards of nearby Queenstown and Fiordland, yet one that has always called to Ryan, even when he lived far away. Drawing on theology, philosophy, previously unpublished archival research and his own observations on foot, he traces the ways people have related to the hills over time, from the foundational and continuing presence of mana whenua through to farming and forestry in the 21st century.

A label from a bottle of Old Hokonui, an illicitly distilled whisky, in a photograph by Albert Percy Godber. The label carries the name of the hills. File photo. Photo: Albert Percy Godber / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
A label from a bottle of Old Hokonui, an illicitly distilled whisky, in a photograph by Albert Percy Godber. The label carries the name of the hills. File photo. Photo: Albert Percy Godber / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Many trips and overnight stays in the hills fed into the writing, and in places the book speaks directly to those experiences. Ryan found he could not keep himself out of it. "I found that it was really very difficult to write about the place, and tell the stories, without bringing something of my own story into it," he told the ODT.

His path to the page has been a long one. He studied for a bachelor of arts at Otago University in the early 2000s and finished a postgraduate diploma in theology about seven years ago. According to the publisher, he has spent close to two decades teaching history, social studies and religious education, and he volunteers on projects to conserve and restore parts of the Hokonui Hills. Ryan said his studies gave him the tools to engage with the rich tradition attached to the hills, including the "deep and ongoing relationship of mana whenua with the hills".

The old Presbyterian church in East Gore, photographed around 1905. Gore is where John Paul Ryan lives and teaches. File photo. Photo: Muir & Moodie / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The old Presbyterian church in East Gore, photographed around 1905. Gore is where John Paul Ryan lives and teaches. File photo. Photo: Muir & Moodie / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

The press describes the result as a meditation on how we understand the places we live, and on whether people can get their relationship with the wider natural world right. For Ryan, it begins with seeing a familiar skyline differently, and with a simple observation about where it sits.

"The Hokonuis [Hills] occupy a very central place in the geography of Southland," he said.

A Place Made for You? A conversation about living with the land, by John Paul Ryan, is published by Otago University Press and available through New Zealand bookshops.