Recent buzz about snow falling to low levels across the ACT and NSW prompted several readers to ask about historic snow dumps in our region.
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"I heard snowfalls last century were much bigger and more widespread than they are now, is that true?" asks Geoff Foster, of Kambah.
While official records at Spencers Creek (between Perisher and Charlotte Pass) show a decreasing trend in average snow depth (and length of season) since records began in 1954, anecdotal reports of record snow falls before then are as colourful as they are many.
One of the most notable blizzards occurred in 1834, with stories the snow was so deep around Kiandra that skeletons of cattle were subsequently found wedged in the canopy of snowgums.
Sound far-fetched? That's what I thought when I first heard this yarn around a campfire near Jindabyne. However, surprisingly it turns out this story is more fact than myth.
"It actually happened," asserts David Scott, who has investigated the 1834 blizzards as part of a PhD in history he is undertaking at Lincoln University.
According to David, "on 25 July 1834 a series of snowstorms lasting three weeks blanketed the mountains and extended across most of the Monaro, killing many cattle".
"Those cattle that survived the initial onslaught of blizzards sought shelter and feed amidst the canopies of snowgums, the only vegetation to be seen protruding above a frozen sea of brilliant white," David says.
"Here they perished from starvation and the effects of exposure, their fallen bodies becoming cradled by the upper branches as the snow melted away in the spring."
Heck! What an eerie spectacle that would have been.
In fact, according to David's research, which relies heavily on newspaper reports of the time, "26 years later, at the time of the Kiandra goldrush, the carcasses of some of these cattle were still evident high in the trees, and widely cited as an omen to those miners considering staying on the diggings through the winter".
"Despite these warnings many miners remained on the diggings throughout the winter of 1860 and and over the passing years, stories of more stock losses become intertwined with the events of 1834; the imagery of carcasses suspended in the trees, a symbol of Europeans' attempts to occupy the Australian alps," he says.
Just how many carcasses were found in the trees, David can't be sure. "You'd think more than a few, a lot less than a hundred," he estimates.
Klaus Hueneke, well-known high country aficionado, reports on another case of cattle bones found high in a tree. In Kiandra to Kosciuszko (Tabletop Press, 1987) he reveals that seven years after 80 cattle were lost in a snowstorm on Long Plain (25km north of Kiandra) in 1850, "the remains of bullock horns were found [by a grazier] in the limb of a tree".
The grazier "ascertained that in the middle of winter cattle must have been walking on 5 metres of snow," Klaus writes, adding, "it would have to be hard-packed to support the bullock's weight."
Klaus suggests another two reasons the bones may have been found high in trees. "It is possible that skeletons in trees may have been the remains of beasts slaughtered for winter rations ... or a practical joker," he speculates.
It wasn't just the cattle affected by the big 1834 blizzard, but also the graziers, who had ventured into the region that was then "beyond the limits of settlement". According to David Scott, stockmen escaped the blizzard by retreating to the Brindabella valley, and were assisted by the local Ngunnawal people in returning back to Ginninderry (near present-day Canberra).
"Another stockman, Bill Ward was reportedly trapped in a hut under 10 metres of snow for a week before being rescued from his icy tomb by 'Yiak Bill'," reports David, whose PhD focuses on the European settlement of Kiandra, from the gold mining and squatting era, right up until the Second World War.
"I've come across other stories at Kiandra of people peering down inside chimneys as they skied over the top of buildings buried in snow," David says. He reports the decrease in snow levels over the past 180 years is one of the reasons he chose his PhD topic.
"These days in Kiandra you are lucky to get a handful of winter storms each year which deliver enough snow to ski on," David laments.
"If current trends continue there'll be generations of kids that will struggle to believe it ever snowed in Kiandra, let alone enough to bury buildings."
Indeed.
Snow café
While this month's snowfalls pale into insignificance when compared with the 1834 blizzards, they have still enticed many readers to rug up and discover the snow-covered back country of the Australian alps.
In fact, this column has received many photos of adventurous alpine escapades from tents being blown away (yes, with sleeping bags inside), to snow falling on Yarrangobilly's thermal pools, but my favourite is this picnic table and chairs dug into the snow in the Ramshead Range above Thredbo.
Taken last week, and cleverly captioned "Ramshead Café", it features Susan Bruce and Tony Brown rugged up in hi-tech warm clothing and tucking into a breakfast of homemade muesli followed by tea and coffee.
The duo were roughing it in a four-day snow camping tour with alpine photographer Mike Edmondson who reports, "the snow up high is a similar depth to last year," adding, "we've been very lucky to have two good seasons in a row".
With temperatures hovering around minus 7 (not to mention the wind chill) during their lofty breakfast, I'm sure it wasn't long before those hot coffees turned into iced coffee.
If the idea of building an igloo and camp kitchen in the snow appeals to you, check-out of Mike's website: mikeedmondson.com.au.
The search for Canberra's silent cops
It might be several months since it featured on this pages, but this column continues to receive correspondence about the Shine Dome.
Ian Sayers, of Hawker, reports that many years ago "a small, elderly, man in long white robes" interrupted a meeting he was having with tourism officials in a Macau café.
"My colleague immediately said how lucky I was to meet this man, a renowned local historian and Portuguese Catholic priest, Father Manuel Teixeira," Ian says.
"We were introduced, and when he was told I came from Canberra, in perfect English he responded, 'Canberra, I've been there, beautiful place, home of the largest silent traffic cop in the world!'.
"That is what he said verbatim - I've never forgotten it.
"He went on to clarify, 'That's what you Australians call the Academy of Science [Shine Dome] building, isn't it?' ".
Well it's a new one to me, but I do see the resemblance to an oversized silent cop, which is the nickname given to that frypan-sized metal or concrete dome embedded in the bitumen that centred many intersections around Australia. Are there any left in the ACT or surrounding towns? I suspect they may now be rarer than public phone booths.
Backwards buildings
It seems that the Acton HQ for AIATSIS isn't the only building supposedly built back-to-front in Canberra. According to Ray Scarlett, the Mackellar Soccer Club was built facing the wrong way.
"There were supposed to be windows overlooking the soccer fields, but it's just a big wall, and the windows instead overlook the car park," Ray says.
However, Michelle Innes has some inside knowledge as to why this might be the case. "Apparently only stage one was built and it is meant to have a mirror image built for stage two, meaning there would be windows on the side of the soccer fields."
CONTACT TIM: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick.
WHERE IN THE REGION?
Clue: Cyclone
Degree of difficulty: Medium-Hard
Last week: Congratulations to Alison Wilson of Bruce who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's photo (inset/above/below) as a chess pit in the gardens of the Brassey Hotel in Barton. Alison just beat Lyn Shelton of Spence and June McKenzie of Fisher to the prize.
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday, August 24, 2019 will win a double pass to Dendy - The Home of Quality Cinema.
LIVING TREASURE
It was heartening to see so many readers of this column at last weekend's commemoration of the 199th sighting of Lake George (Weereewaa) by convict-come-explorer Joseph Wild.
Among the enthusiastic audience at Lake George Winery was 100-year-old Linda Welch, who was born at Silver Wattle, on the shores of the lake on March 13, 1919, and whose uncle and father "erected most of the fences that you can still see stretching across the [now] dry lake bed in the early 1900s".
Linda, who regaled everyone with tales of growing up and playing in and around the enigmatic lake, is already planning to attend next year's TBC bicentenary celebrations.
SPOTTED
"I have heard of people having DNR tattooed on their chest but never seen it on an ambulance," muses Kevin Mulcahy of Tura Beach. He recently spotted this ambulance with unfortunate number plates parked in the main street of Bega.
For the uninitiated, a DNR order (Do Not Resuscitate), is a medical order written by a doctor to instruct health care providers not to undertake cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if a patient's breathing stops or if the patient's heart stops beating.
SUBURBAN SECRET
Stephen Holt, of Macquarie, recently spotted this street identifier in Ainslie. "It's of no use if you are in a vehicle as you can't see it," Stephen says. "So what was its purpose?" Someone must know.