Early Kiandra skiers cross the snow on long wooden “snowshoes”, the term then used for skis. Photo: Kiandra Historical Society.
As winter bites, spare a thought for the party of adventurers who, in July 1896, looked across the snowbound country around Kiandra and apparently decided a 29-kilometre round trip on snowshoes sounded like a reasonable day out.
They might easily have completed the journey without anyone beyond the district hearing about it. Instead, their ordeal became a ready-made newspaper sensation after a report was sent out of the mountains and republished across the nation.
The snowshoes carried by the group were not the short frames now commonly associated with the name.
At Kiandra, “snowshoes” was the original term for skis.
Introduced by Scandinavian miners during Kiandra’s short-lived gold rush, the long wooden skis were made locally and provided one of the few practical ways to move through deep snow.
They had upturned tips and simple straps or bindings to secure the traveller’s boots, while balance, strength and sometimes a long pole were used to control speed and direction.
According to the Kiandra Historical Society, the first documented newspaper account of skiing at Kiandra appeared in the winter of 1861.
By 1896, snowshoes were firmly established in the settlement, serving not only as sporting equipment but also as a vital means of reaching outlying diggings, huts and grazing properties when winter conditions made ordinary travel difficult.
The morning was clear and the snow hard with frost when the party set out early for the Nine Mile diggings that mid-July day.
The newspaper identified them only by their surnames – Eastwood, Bourke, Ottley and Irwin – along with two boys from the Hetherington family.
Their destination lay along one of the district’s old goldfields routes, through the Four Mile area and towards the diggings at Nine Mile Creek.
They covered the outward 14.5 kilometres in just two and a half hours.
Getting home would take another 22.
It was familiar country to Kiandra residents, but fog and falling snow could quickly obscure the tracks and landmarks on which travellers depended.
After leaving the Nine Mile about 2 pm, the skiers called at the hut of Four Mile goldminer William “Bill” Glennie before deciding to return to Kiandra by the tableland track.
That was when things began to go awry.
Heavy snow was falling and dense fog had swallowed the mountains.
After four hours of hard travelling, the party realised it had gone in a complete circle and returned to its own tracks.
By then, darkness had closed in and the snowshoers were facing an overnight stay for which they were spectacularly unprepared.
They had no food, no extra clothing and no shelter.
July is typically Kiandra’s coldest month, with average temperatures hovering only a few degrees above freezing during the day and falling below zero overnight.
According to the newspaper reports, the group slid down to a sheltered slope and, after considerable difficulty, managed to light a fire on top of almost a metre of snow.
For the next 12 hours, they huddled around it while sleet and snow fell continuously.
At 6:30 am the following day, they made a fresh start for the tableland, where they waited for the fog to clear enough to identify a landmark.
It was not until 10:30 am that Eucumbene River appeared through the gloom.
After taking their bearings, the party stubbornly worked its way around the steep sidlings towards Kiandra, arriving home at noon.
They had spent 22 hours continuously on their snowshoes without food or extra clothing and estimated they had travelled more than 48 kilometres while wandering in the fog.
The Kiandra correspondent reported that all six regarded it as an extraordinarily wearying night, although none appeared to suffer lasting effects from the exposure.
The Nine Mile party was not the last to discover how quickly a familiar journey around Kiandra could become dangerous.
Two winters later, deep snow brought the usual horse mail service from Adaminaby to a halt, forcing the final section of the journey to be completed on snowshoes.
Eight men, including police officer Senior Constable Scott, formed a search party and finally discovered the exhausted mailman several miles from Kiandra.
Another traveller, Arthur McInnes, became lost while travelling from the Toolong diggings and remained missing from Tuesday until Saturday, surviving without food or a fire.
The incidents showed that snowshoes were more than sporting equipment at Kiandra.
They were a lifeline in country where snow could stop horses and turn a familiar journey into a fight for survival.
The equipment has changed beyond recognition. The mountains have not.
Original Article published by Edwina Mason on About Regional.
