Fifty years ago, while the politicians and planners made board table decisions about the future development of what was one of New Zealand's remotest regions, Chris Carran and his brothers were working on those changes from the ground up. As agricultural contractors, in the mid-1950s they were hired to clear the land and plough paddocks that would permanently alter the topography of former run country in the Te Anau Basin. From those inauspicious beginnings as a teenager, Chris returned to Te Anau with a wife and family and set up Carran Contracting Ltd. in 1969. Later still, he bought land and stocked it with wild deer brought out from the Fiordland National Park. With his son, he continues to farm deer, some bred from that initial herd. In this recording, Chris talks about the changes he's witnessed in the contracting industry and the Te Anau Basin as a whole. This is not a full oral history of his life.