Long before Crocodile Dundee ... there was Harry

The notorious ‘Crocodile Harry’ was a fascinating man who migrated from Latvia and lived life very much on his own terms.

Arvids Blumentals, a post-war migrant from Latvia better known as Crocodile Harry.

“He’ll catch crocs with bare hands!”

On July 11, 1956, The Courier-Mail newspaper in Brisbane ran a story under that headline, describing how a strapping Latvian migrant, whose name they had spelled incorrectly, had been wrestling and killing crocodiles with a large knife, intending to sell their taxidermied bodies at the Melbourne Olympics for about five pounds each.

This was not the first article to be written about Arvids Blumentals, a post-war migrant from Latvia better known as Crocodile Harry, and it would not be the last.

While he is not as well-known today, Crocodile Harry was in the 20th century the subject of many books and articles, as well as documentaries, appearing alongside celebrities like Olivia Newton-John and Tina Turner. There have long been rumours that he was the prototype for Crocodile Dundee, though Paul Hogan, who wrote the film script, denies this.

I did not personally know Blumentals but I have a link to him, which goes back to my childhood. My grandmother, Mila Karline Laktina, used to sell the small taxidermied baby crocodiles he caught. Her room was often full of them, and as a little girl, I was fascinated. Still, many people have asked me: why write a whole biography, especially since Crocodile Harry led, toward the end, a rather dissolute life, often drunk in an underground dugout in Coober Pedy?

Inside Crocodile Harry’s dugout, which became a tourist attraction.

There are many reasons. Firstly, he did many interesting things, first as a soldier in Latvia, then as a migrant, crocodile hunter, uranium prospector, opal miner, and artist. His books, diaries, letters and interviews recounting his adventures are fascinating, and many are not accessible to Australians because they are in his native tongue.

Second, he had an intriguing personality. Was he really a well-read man who spoke several languages? A sensitive and romantic soul who corresponded with his mother and first love for many decades, and a successful womaniser? He created myths about himself, and I wanted to explore this complexity.

Third, there is social significance: Blumentals was a soldier in World War II and his experiences on the Eastern Front introduced him to the futility of war. He was wounded, and his family – once proud farmers in Latvia – experienced the horror of deportation to Siberia. The psychological and physical toll of World War II , and post-war migration, is a familiar story to Australians. Blumentals made his way from his shattered homeland in Europe to the Bonegilla migrant camp outside Melbourne, before drifting north. He travelled with his beloved dogs across the extensive Gulf Country, covering parts of North Queensland and the Northern Territory, with the intention of prospecting for gold and uranium, aiming to get rich, and because he needed to be alone, and close to nature.

Harry the Latvian patriot (the chunk missing from his arm is a war injury, not a crocodile injury).

As Crocodile Harry, he began killing both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles in the rivers and creeks that fed into the Gulf of Carpentaria. His hunting methods varied: he could catch smaller crocodiles (up to about 5 feet) using only his bare hands and a knife. For larger, more dangerous saltwater crocodiles, he primarily used rifles, often targeting the neck or head to paralyse the animal before securing and finishing it. Harpoons were also employed for very large crocodiles, allowing him to tire them out on a rope before bringing them close enough to be shot or dispatched with an axe. Much of the hunting was conducted at night using a spotlight to disorient the crocodiles, often from a boat or a silent canoe.

Life as a crocodile hunter was solitary, physically demanding, and extremely dangerous. It involved skinning the crocodiles, and constant, near-fatal encounters with apex predators.

He recounted his adventures in two books, A Latvian Crocodile Hunter in Australia and Longing for the Sun.

When crocodile hunting bans were introduced in the late 1960s and early ’70s, he had to reinvent himself again, as a gravity surveyor and opal miner.

He arrived in Coober Pedy in the ’70s, and the environment suited him. The town was seen as Australia’s version of the Wild West, with mullock heaps, unusual machinery, junk, dugouts, and eccentrics who did not live by typical rules.

Harry spent decades in Coober Pedy, searching for “shiny stones”. In 1975, he staked a claim and blasted out his underground home, the Crocodile’s Nest, which would later function as a tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world, including backpackers, filmmakers and nuns, who paid around $2 to see one of the quirky attractions of Coober Pedy.

The dugout was famous for its unusual decorations, including Harry’s collection of women’s underwear and bras, which he claimed were from women who had lost their virginity there. The walls were covered with graffiti, and a scene from Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome was filmed there.

It’s worth noting that many of the men living in Coober Pedy in the late 20th century were former soldiers carrying the lasting impact of World War II. A Latvian film, Procession with a Crocodile, was made about Harry’s life in 1995, and the script, by Imants Ziedonis, offered a glimpse into the psychological damage of his war injuries.

Harry had an enormous appetite for alcohol, often drinking until he collapsed, and he’d sleep it off on the ground. His romantic relationships were volatile, and police had to warn him after he started goosestepping down the main street of Coober Pedy on Anzac Day.

Harry resided in Coober Pedy for a remarkable 36 years. I had access, while writing his biography, to many sources, including his letters and diaries (held in Kubalu School and Museum, Latvia); his own books; communication with a few relatives (mainly his first cousin Ausma Bukovska); archival information from Latvia and Australia (from the Latvian War Museum, census records, church records, the National Archives of Australia, the National Archives of Latvia, the Arolsen Archive); many newspaper and online stories; and interviews with people who knew or met him, especially the kind residents of Coober Pedy.

Emerging from my research was a man who lived on the periphery of society for much of his life, seeking freedom from torment. Arvids Blumentals died in 2006. His dugout, the Crocodile’s Nest, is recognised as having historical significance, and is excluded from mining. His grave features a granite headstone, watched over by a small crocodile sculpture, and inscribed with a verse by Latvian poet Janis Rainis: “You try to break us, evil foe / But the battle is not yet over”.

Author Inara Strungs.

Love, War and Crocodiles.

Inara Strungs is an Australian-Latvian writer from Brisbane. She has written two novels and a nonfiction book about her parents’ traditional Baltic bakery (Secrets of a Waterloo Baker). Her book about Crocodile Harry, called Love, War and Crocodiles, is out now.