The man turning dreamtime real

IN A far north town notorious for violence and wanton destruction, Bruce Martin is imagining a future where indigenous locals make their own living and children regularly go to school.

Bruce Martin's bush camp for kids in Aurukum

IN A far north town notorious for violence and wanton destruction, Bruce Martin is imagining a future where indigenous locals make their own living and children regularly go to school.

The seemingly simple goal belies the social problems that for decades have bred atop the crimson soil of Aurukun and inside its government-built hotbox houses surrounded by scrappy packs of wandering dogs.

As Martin outlines his vision for the remote community, the occasional passing child, eyes gleaming with adoration, pauses to wrap their arms around his legs.

They are visibly excited; tomorrow they will head bush with clan elders to walk their ancestral homelands in a way never done before.

Ancient skills such as tracking and spear throwing will be passed down to the next generation - proposals that had Education Queensland's risk assessors in a tizz - along with GPS positioning and topographic maps.

The camp is Martin's way of rewarding pre-teens improving at school, moving away from models that only offer incentives to those falling behind.

But it's also an important chance for youngsters who have spent their lives confined within the tiny Aurukun township, watching relatives fall prey to booze and poverty, to become "intimate with their country" and the old way, Martin says.

"It's not just the cultural knowledge," he says.

"We see it as building foundational blocks for young people who in five or six years time will be comfortable both in their indigeneity and the Western world."

A few weeks later, dozens of photos of beaming young Aborigines lob into my inbox.

The camp was undoubtedly a hit but Martin has barely paused for breath.

Mustering is about to begin, he writes, on a cattle station closed years ago but now reopened to create much-needed jobs in a town where unemployment has grown to 20 per cent.

Martin reckons Aurukun, which hugs the western Cape York coast, is good cattle country but it's "only about the size of Ireland" and can't sustainably run the 45,000 head of cattle it once did.

So they'll forgo some profit to make sure it is sustainable.

It's the same with his turtle monitoring project and a plan to sell carbon credits - all are underscored by a decree that it must be good for country, community and people.

Martin has set it up under the banner of Aak Puul Ngantam - loosely translated to "our ancestral homelands" - a community-owned and run company incorporated in June.

"It's the community who were the driving force in creating this - it was us saying this is what we want to do, this is how we should do it," he says.

"So not just playing the same old blame game that we're victims and it's everybody else's fault, realising that we have a part to play in this."

In many ways, Martin follows in the entrepreneurial footsteps of his father, once known in the community as "our big brother Jesus" as much for his blue eyes, long hair and beard and fair skin as for the saving graces he built.

The university-educated engineer made Aurukun's first barge, returning locals to their homelands across the river from the former missionary town, and helped build the little airstrip that remains one of the only ways out during the wet.

His 28-year-old son, who spoke only the local Wik Mungkan language until age five, continues that pioneering work in his quest to get the community off the welfare drip.

Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser, after a brief visit last month, remarked he'd never seen Aurukun so optimistic, so ready for change.

Martin's challenge is maintaining that momentum.