Knocking About

American-born Gus Pierce arrived in Australia in 1860 and promptly deserted, swimming ashore at Port Phillip. He worked as a photographer for Batchelders and painted scenery for the Lyceum theatre before hunting for snakes with Joe Shires - the inventor of a snake-bite cure. He compiled a strip map of the Murray River from Albury to Goolwa, by navigating it in a canoe with an Aboriginal dancer and...