Written by Celine Louie
Nestled beside the tranquil expanse of Poona National Park, Ravens Hill is a place where history and nature intertwine.
With over 600 acres of vastly untouched bush land, Ravens hill is a place that resonates with the stories of our past and whispers a promise to all who visit; that this land holds the key to finding connection and growth.
Glen Miller, a proud Butchulla man and steward of the land, is on a mission to use Ravens Hill to change the lives of the men in his community. Running grassroots projects to bring men of all ages together, it’s a place that simply allows men to be men—a place of openness and understanding where judgment is left at the gate.
Glen’s journey to this point reflects his hands-on, problem-solving nature—he’s never been one to sit back and complain. He’s a mover and a shaker with a long list of achievements to prove it.
Born in the heart of Butchulla country, Glen grew up in Hervey Bay. Back in the 1950s, the Fraser Coast as we know it today was vastly different. With a population of only 4,000, the bay was a quiet seaside town, set away from the hustle and bustle of Maryborough, the regional capital at the time.
A descendant of the Wondunna Clan, his great-grandfather Willie Wondunna was one of the five trackers present at the capture of Ned Kelly. Willie’s son, Fred (Glens grand-father), was also the first full-blooded Aboriginal man to marry a white woman in Sydney in 1907. Sadly Glen didn’t get to know him, as he was banished by his father for “playing up.”
Growing up in Hervey Bay, his Uncle Wilfie is still remembered around town for taking the local kids fishing, and showing them how to collect shells on the spit at low tide. Teaching seems to run in the blood as Glen can now attest to, imparting similar knowledge with the kids he mentors today.
At the tender age of 16 he started working in the local coal mines, but after eleven years, Glen knew that despite the hefty paycheck he received each week, he wanted more out of life. Spotting an ad in the Courier Mail for an Aboriginal Relics Ranger, he applied and won the job, taking a 30% pay cut.
This set the trajectory for new opportunities, and he spent most of his life working on various government projects, and with organisations aiming to help bring positive change to Aboriginal people.
“In 2010, I came home here, and like most people who’ve lost their identity and their role, it takes you a couple of years to recover and find a new identity and a new role. One of the first things I noticed was all of our Butchulla organisations were run by women, and there wasn’t a Butchulla man in a leadership role anywhere,” Glen recalls.
Alarmed at the lack of male role models in the Butchulla community, Glen set about creating the Butchulla Mens Business Aboriginal Association, an organisation as the name suggests, specifically for men’s business, regardless of whether they are Butchulla or not.
His concern turned to the lack of male role models in the community, and what that meant for the future of the younger generations. He set about trying to find a solution.
“Several times, we had weekend camps and sat around the fire and talked about what we should do. Everybody was concerned about what’s not there for our young fellas.”
In this modern age, we have lost the traditional initiation ceremonies held by Indigenous cultures across the world. These act as stepping stones, allowing indigenous boys to enter adulthood with a strong sense of identity and belonging, which in turn allows them to harbor respect for the people and things around them.
Glen could see this was the key to help break the cycle of addiction in so many Aboriginal men today. The problem was, how best to integrate this powerful ceremony into modern day culture?
“So we all talked about trying to bring back the old initiation process, but we didn’t know what to do.
In the old days, they were circumcised, they had a front tooth knocked out, and their bodies were scarred as part of initiation. All around the world, initiation ceremonies are always pretty hard. But we had a policeman in the group, and he said, ‘if you do any of that, I’ll have to arrest you,’” Glen laughs.
A few years after these discussions, they connected with a Mullumbimby organisation called Rites of Passage and recognised it as the solution they had been searching for.
The process is one of learning without actively teaching. Most of the boys have spent their lives in town and have no knowledge of the land.
“First of all, they just want to be with men. We take them for a walk out at low tide and show them where the flathead have been laying, go and pump a few yabbies and talk about how it’s all changed, how silt coming down the river has changed all the Sandy Straits .We explain to them how we’ve got to keep that one area open for the migrating shorebirds, they fly in from Siberia and if we don’t pull the mangrove shoots out it’ll all get choked out with mangroves and they’ll have nowhere to go to feed, just stuff like that.” Glen explains.
The boys are taught respect for the land and for their elders. After the final initiation test they are asked to live the rest of their lives by the three Butchulla laws:
What is good for the land comes first.
Do not touch or take anything that does not belong to you.
If you have plenty, you must share.
“A lot of the boys that we work with are being brought up by single mums. They know that they are of Aboriginal descent, but they don’t actually know what that means. We put ourselves up as role models, and we try to let them know that not all Aboriginal men are drunks, drug addicts, wife beaters, or thieves, and that’s the role we try to play,” Glen explains.
So far, the results have been outstanding, with boys returning home with a completely different outlook from when they first arrived.
At Ravens Hill, one of the most profound traditions is the simple yet powerful act of gathering around the campfire to share openly.
Glen explains, “Huge unburdening happens around that fire when men are sitting there amongst men and they know that they can say anything they like and there’s no judgment. The rules are: only the person holding the stick can speak. You are not allowed to make a noise, you’re not allowed to laugh, you’re not allowed to cough, you’re not allowed to butt in, and your role is just to sit there and listen to that man’s story. You’re not to sit there and make judgments or try to advise everybody else.”
Glen is so passionate about the power of simply letting blokes talk that he wants to use it in other areas. Working as an Elder at the Maryborough Correctional Centre, he can see the benefits that would be achieved from its use. Rather than sitting in a room with an inmate who may not want to open up, the aim is to create a place of open sharing, connecting the inmates. His goal is to help them understand that they are in jail “as” punishment, not “for” punishment.
He explains the power in deciphering this difference: “If you understand that, then you understand why your behaviour affects the outcome. If you think you’re there for punishment and want to rebel against it all the time, you’re going to go nowhere.”
And so, it is no surprise that with all the lives he continues to change, simply by being Glen Miller and wanting to do good for his people, he was just awarded “Fraser Coast Citizen of the Year,” an award that came as a surprise to him, but was absolutely well-earned.
Though Glen’s years advance, his dedication to the Butchulla community remains as strong as ever. These days, he enjoys a slower pace, as well as spending time with his seven great grand-children.
At Ravens hill a community is growing, with men of all ages stepping in to be the stewards of the land. And in return, the land continues to give them back their sense of identity and self-worth, creating a brighter future for the generations of men to follow.