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As you enjoy the immense natural beauty of the mountains on the Roof of Australia tour in the Australian Alps, it is impossible not to notice and be impressed by the engineering marvel of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, one of the most complex integrated water diversion and hydro-electric power schemes in the world.
December 2009
The Snowy Mountains Scheme area is largely within the Kościuszko National Park. It was initially an undeveloped area in 1949 when the construction commenced, with a few dirt roads linking Cooma with Tumut and bush tracks used by pastoralists. Thredbo, Perisher, and Smiggin Holes were non-existent.
During construction, seven regional townships and over 100 temporary camps were established throughout the Snowy Mountains. Towns like Eaglehawk, Sue City, Happy Jacks and Bella Vista were purpose-built to service specific projects. Home to hundreds or even thousands of people for several years, they were dismantled after work was completed.
These towns and camps serviced the men, women and families who came to build the Scheme. Life in the camps was extremely hard, especially during the early years, when hundreds of men spent harsh winters in canvas tents with only basic amenities and provisions.
When the workers' wives came to join them in the townships, these women had to work hard to overcome the hardships and establish communities in the strange, new, wilderness environment. When work in one area was completed, the dwellings were dismantled and moved to another area, so very little remains of these towns today.
This photograph depicts a street of houses for workers' families at Eaglehawk near the Eucumbene Dam site in winter in the mid-1950s. The town was built by the NSW Public Works Department, which began the Eucumbene Dam project.
These buildings were prefabricated in Sydney and transported to the Snowy by semi-trailer. Unfortunately, they were not specifically designed for use in the freezing climate of the Snowy Mountains. External water pipes froze in winter and the lack of insulation and double-glazing added to residents’ discomfort in cold weather.
Between 1949 when the first blasting shot was fired and 1974 when the physical works of the Scheme were completed, over 100,000 men and women from more than 30 countries had worked on the Scheme. Australian-born workers made up only one-third of the workforce, which reached a peak of 7,300 in 1959.
Many migrants were escaping the horror of war-torn Europe to begin a new life in a new land. Working together on the Scheme, they became part of the “Snowy family”, with former enemies and allies working side by side.
At first, most of the workers were men who had left their families at home in Europe. Their plan was to work hard, save money and bring their families out when they could afford to.
The work was hard and the conditions were tough. Because 98% of the project was underground, there was a lot of tunnelling, often through solid granite rock. Work in the tunnels was dirty, wet, noisy, smelly and sometimes dangerous. 121 workers died in the project's 25-year construction period, 53 of them in tunnels.
The Snowy Mountains Scheme – tough and unremitting as the work was – provided their introduction to Australian working life and it stands as a monument to their endeavour.
While many workers with overseas contractors returned home at the completion of the contract, the majority of the Scheme’s workers stayed on to live in Australia after the project was completed, making a valuable contribution to Australia's modern multicultural society.
A sense of companionship and camaraderie grew out of hard work and isolation. Community centres and health facilities were established in towns around the Scheme. Cooma changed from a quiet farming town to a cosmopolitan centre with nightclubs, hotels, and delicatessens with new and exotic foods.
Some immigrant workers brought children with them from overseas and others were born in the Scheme’s townships. While they often went through the difficult experience of being different from local children in language, dress and custom, the presence of so many different cultures also helped overcome such problems. The photograph on the left shows boys at Eaglehawk standing with a soccer ball on the township's playing fields. An organised game for workers proceeds in the background. Soccer was a relatively uncommon sport in regional NSW in the 1950s but it was popular with migrant workers and their children.
Kalev Tarmo, son of an Estonian worker, lived high in the mountains at Happy Jacks village. He commented on the effect of the experience on growing-up:
We became different to a lot of other children. We found we could be on our own longer and be more independent, and the friendships seemed to be more binding. We subscribed to a lot of periodicals and radio was a big thing. (McHugh, 1989: 200)
Australian-born Chris Griffiths recalled his childhood at Tumut:
We didn't really think it was any different from anywhere else... In winter you'd go visiting the other houses... their parents might be French so you'd have French tucker. The next lot might be German and they'd have all these knick-knacks lyin' around… that's what was interesting. (McHugh, 1989: 201)
Families often moved from one construction township to another as projects were finished and others commenced. The settlements were often divided by work status into precincts. In Cooma, for instance, children of wages or trades personnel went to Cooma East School, while the children of salaried or professional staff went to Cooma North School.
All strata of society were represented, from the inhabitants of historic centres of culture like Vienna and Budapest, Berlin and Paris to those living in remote villages in the Balkans and Ukraine.
Many of those who came from overseas were employed by the large contracted firms from Norway, France and the USA. Having completed their work they returned to their country of origin. The picture on the left shows Norwegian tunnellers at Guthega in the early 1950s. Most of this workforce returned to Norway after completion of the project.
Other Snowy workers arrived in Australia as refugees from post-war Europe. Australia took 180,000 'Displaced Persons' between 1947 and 1951. Typically these people had lost their homes during the war or had left their countries after Communist regimes were established. In Australia they were required to work for two years in assigned jobs in return for refuge. Some were sent to the Snowy, others made their way there after serving their two years elsewhere.
By far the largest group of overseas-born Snowy workers arrived in Australia as unassisted immigrants, part of the nearly 2.5 million people who came to Australia between 1947 and 1974. Some of these people had heard of the Scheme before they left their homelands, others moved to the Snowy in search of work after they arrived.
Most were of European origin because the White Australia policy discouraged Asian and coloured immigration. Even so, Australia was still very different to the countries left behind and migrant workers adapted to – and in turn changed – their new communities.
Through the 1950s and much of the 1960s, Australia's immigration policy was guided by the ideal of assimilation. 'New Australians' were expected to fit in with existing Anglo-Celtic customs and traditions. In 1952 Immigration Minister Harold Holt spoke of building “a truly British nation on this side of the world” by imposing traditional Anglo-Australian customs on migrants.
Between 1948 and 1983, British and Irish migrants received citizenship rights which included the right to vote after five years’ residency. Others, though, had to be 'naturalised', a process which involved swearing allegiance to the British monarch.
This photograph shows a naturalisation ceremony in Cooma in the early 1960s. The portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is prominent at the back of the stage and was also included on naturalisation certificates. Nevertheless, the woman addressing the crowd is Tanya Verstak, the first non-Anglo ‘Miss Australia’ and her presence suggests a shift in attitudes towards migrants and the acceptance of cultural diversity.
In 1959 the town of Cooma built an avenue of flags in its main park to acknowledge the contribution of different nationalities to the Scheme. An International Club was established to celebrate different cultures and public debates on the place of migrants in Australian society were held.
Despite the emphasis on assimilation, migrants did not abandon their cultural practices and beliefs, nor their political standpoints. Anti-communist workers from Balkan states frequently removed the communist-regime Yugoslav flag in the avenue of flags; attempts to reinstate the flag were eventually abandoned.
This German carpenters' guild scarf was brought to Australia by Karl Rieck. Like his colleagues, Karl wore his traditional carpenter's costume of black corduroy while working at Island Bend, in deference to his native country's guild rules. The German carpenters were among the most distinctive groups on the Scheme.
Lutherans established a congregation in Cooma and built a church that continues to service their community. Delicatessens and restaurants offering a range of foods for the new European communities opened in Cooma and Tumut where previously there had been only traditional Anglo-Australian cuisine.
Snowy workers from Norway, Czechoslovakia, Italy and Germany helped to develop the small Australian skiing industry. Kore and Eva Grunnsund followed in the footsteps of an earlier Norwegian immigrant, Martin Amundsen, who introduced new skiing technologies and techniques to Australia in the 1880s; and Czechoslovakian-born Tony Sponar helped to establish Thredbo as a major tourist resort. The photograph at left shows a ski jump built at the authority town of Cabramurra. The event is probably the NSW and National Championships of 1961, which featured ski jumping, slalom and cross-country ‘langlauf’ events.
In 1974 when construction on the Scheme was finished, many of the workers dispersed to new jobs in Australia and overseas. But by far a majority of those who came to build the Scheme and a new life stayed, becoming Australian citizens. These new Australians, with their energy and enterprise, changed Australia's social and cultural skyline forever.
The Snowy Mountains Scheme is not just a great feat of engineering; the story of the Scheme's construction is also a story of diverse people who persevered through harsh conditions, rugged country and a unique climate to eventually build one of the greatest projects ever undertaken in the world.
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Sources:
Snowy Hydro Ltd – www.snowyhydro.com.au
www.powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/snowy/
McHugh, Siobhan. (1989) The Snowy: People Behind the Power (William Heinemann, Port Melbourne, 1989), pp.200-201.
Collis, Brad, Snowy – The Making of Modern Australia (Melbourne, 1988; online 2009) –
www.bradcollis.net/snowy/
Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Special Article - The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme” (1301.0 – 1986)
Australian Department of Culture & Recreation Culture Portal –
www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/snowyscheme/
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The Snowy Hydro Scheme - Summary
The Snowy Hydro Scheme: History
The Snowy Hydro Scheme - How It Works
The Snowy Hydro Scheme - The Environment
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