Eleven

The eleven remaining shacks of Tin City run along the dune ridge in a single sparse line, the buildings at various heights, pitches, and colours but reading from this angle as one continuous settlement. The frame takes in roof lines, side walls, and the gaps between adjacent buildings. The wind has worked sand up against the windward ends of several of the shacks. Some of the buildings are painted, some are bare galvanised metal, and most are patched in two or three different surface materials. The settlement looks small against the dune field that surrounds it.

Eleven is the working count. The settlement reached its highest point at around 36 to 38 shacks during the 1930s Depression and has fallen since, through Army demolition during World War II, sand burial in the post-war years, and individual loss of buildings over time. The 2015 Worimi Conservation Lands Plan of Management locked the count in place: no new shacks may be built, and no shack may be rebuilt after destruction. Tin City is therefore a settlement that can only shrink. Whether eleven becomes ten, then nine, then less is a question of how the dunes, the salt, and the storms treat the remaining buildings over the next several decades.