A surprising find in a bundle of old Sydney Bulletin magazines is the above full page advertisement featuring the colourful Northern Territory character , " White Hunter " Allan Stewart, and the Nourlangie safari camp .
By Peter Simon
For a mere 20 pounds ($40) a day, Darwin Safari Limited provided clothing, guns, ammunition, fishing gear, " native skinners", boats, horses, motor vehicles " your white hunter ", food accommodation and refreshments.
Hunters were flown by light aircraft to Nourlangie , 120 miles east of Darwin , to the camp in Arnhem Land , where they could shoot buffaloes , crocodiles, pigs kangaroos , dingoes , ducks, geese , quail (in season ) .
This Australian " hunting paradise" , the faded l960 advert boasted , had been described by American hunters Bill Carpenter and Arthur Jones of Louisiana and " Woody " Woodhill of California as the best of the world's hunting camps they had ever seen . Woody is shown posing with a buffalo he shot .
Stewart was a close friend of Northern Territory News editor , Jim Bowditch . They first met when Stewart , an experienced PR man , who had managed leading radio and revue artists, came to Darwin to help promote the grandiose Humpty Doo rice project , backed by American money and the Australian government , which was supposed to become "the food bowl of Asia ".
Australian politician Harold Holt, later the PM who disappeared at sea, in 1953 got American entrepreneur Allen Chase , renowned for holding Hollywood parties in his mansion , interested in the idea of large scale rice growing on Australian floodplains. At the time small scale rice growing was conducted in the Kimberley and on the Ord in Western Australia , and Adelaide River , near Darwin .
Chase flew out to Australia , became wildly enthusiastic , and reportedly said the situation was like the Nile Valley, but twice as good . He formed a syndicate which included B. Mosher from Signal Oil, TV star Art Linkletter and the chairman of American President Lines Ralph Davies. They put up $40,000 for a survey and in November 1955 Territory Rice Limited was incorporated in Sydney , with rights to 303,000 hectares .
A lot of money was spent and a series of unexpected problems were encountered , including the fact that water from a nearby source was too salty and could not be used on the paddy fields at a key period . Two dams were built at great cost , there were other financial setbacks with harvesting equipment , the power supply for a rice processing plant . Robert McCulloch of outboard motor fame put two million into the venture . Magpie geese found the rice delicious . Eventually the ambitious Territory Rice project folded .
During his life Stewart made several failed attempts to become a politician . Soon after WWll , he contested two elections , one against fiery East Sydney ALP politician Eddie Ward. He failed to gain Liberal pre-selection when he described a Liberal as a person with two feet firmly planted in the air .
In 1972 , Stewart unsuccessfully stood as an independent for the NT federal seat in the House of Representatives against the sitting member , Sam Calder, known as " Silent Sam". During the campaign, addressing the Women's Electoral Lobby , he said Australia could support a population of 60 million . In an attempt to capture the "donkey vote"-that of people who just voted from the alphabetical top down -he changed his name by deed poll to Alexander Allan-Stewart so that his hyphenated surname was on top.
While he did not get elected, he appeared on the Tommy Hanlon TV Show and was presented with the White Hunter of the Week Award.
