About the Author

Frank Baarda was born in 1943 in Holland. He spent his primary school years in Argentina. When he was twelve years old his family returned to the Netherlands and after two years emigrated to Australia. He spent most of his teenage years in Moe, Victoria. He met his wife at the University of Melbourne where he studied geology. He worked as a field geologist in Australia during the 1960s nickel boom, then in Canada and the Canadian Arctic as a well-site geologist. They returned to Australia by road to Panama and then by ship across the Pacific. In 1973, after two years in Darwin, Frank and his family arrived at their predestined Yuendumu. The cultural, geographic and linguistically diverse background to Frank's life has given him a distinctive perspective on and appreciation of Yuendumu and its people.