Cohens Lake, later renamed Blackfellows Lake, is presented as a newly founded reserve within a landscape being reorganized by settler expansion. Its brief appearance connects the region’s place names to a larger process: Aboriginal people are driven from their homelands, pushed into the mountains, or confined to designated camps, while settlers discuss clearing land for development.

Naming and the reserve

During the Clintoffs’ arrival in Everton, Nate reports that his briefings describe most of the people authorities regard as troublesome as having been driven higher into the mountains. Others, he says, are living at a camp or reserve newly established at Cohens Lake, which has been renamed Blackfellows Lake. The two names record different frames of reference: one identifies the place as a lake, while the later name marks it as a site associated with Aboriginal containment.

Displacement and settlement

The reserve belongs to a broader campaign against the Ngarigo and neighboring nations. As more white settlers arrive, they take land, erect fences, and drive Aboriginal people from their homelands. Seasonal movement becomes increasingly difficult; people are forced to survive by staying out of sight. At district meetings, Charles Edwards argues that the outpost of Cresthill should be developed into a town, citing the stock route and the arrival of farmers and settlers. He supports the proposal with the condition that Aboriginal people be managed, and the agreed policy is put into effect rapidly. The reserve is therefore part of a landscape shaped not only by settlement but by organized efforts to remove people from the land settlers seek to occupy.

Land, knowledge, and survival

The mountains and the reserve represent different outcomes of displacement rather than separate stories. Authority figures describe Aboriginal people as driven into higher country or living in a camp, while Yadaka explains to Danny that his people traditionally descend from the mountains and travel north when the first mist appears in the valleys, seeking warmer conditions for winter. That seasonal route expresses knowledge of the land and a way of life disrupted by fences, expulsion, and colonial control. Cohens Lake’s renamed status consequently carries more than geographical information: it situates the reserve within the conflict between Indigenous connection to Country and a settler order that restricts movement and claims authority over land.