Uphill work to preserve mountain huts: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 09 July 2007: 3.
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Abstract
“It is not just the huts — it’s the people as much as anything,” Mr [Harry Hill] said. “I am painfully aware this is heritage that is fast disappearing.
Megan Bowden, the senior ranger responsible for the huts, has been closely involved in the detective work required to establish the social connections necessary to justify their restoration. “The work has been difficult because a lot of the people associated with the huts are at the age where they are passing on, and their stories are being lost,” she said.
“People are very attached to the huts — they have childhood memories of sitting around fires, boiling the billy, telling so many wonderful stories.”
Full Text
THEIR names recall a colourful and sometimes forlorn history, times of skulduggery and nefarious activity.
Love Nest in the Sallees, Pugilistic Creek and Disappointment Spur are a few of the monikers given to the abandoned huts scattered across the Kosciuszko National Park in the Snowy Mountains.
Locals say the buildings echo with stories of bored and lonely stockmen “getting on the grog”, of illegal whisky stills and wild parties, mysterious murders and illicit affairs.
Built on public land from the time of the gold rush onwards, many of the heritage-listed huts have disappeared, most lost to bushfires, vandals or old age: 19 huts were badly damaged during the 2003 bushfires, and just 64 remain in the 673,000ha park. Some are practically intact, others are barely detectable ruins.
But historians and park managers have moved to save this part of Australia’s cultural history, breaking with the norm in national parks to repair the buildings.
Seven are to be rebuilt entirely and four others are to be substantially reconstructed using traditional materials and building techniques.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service has long been bound by the “Burra Convention” — the rules managing European relics in national parks. The philosophy has been to let nature take its course and not to preserve or rebuild.
But the Kosciuszko Huts Association and its best-known member, folk historian Harry Hill, along with heritage enthusiasts from within the national parks service, have challenged that tradition.
Mr Hill, 80, has become a master at tracking down obscure connections to the huts, convincing reticent elderly people to put on record their long-buried memories.
“It is not just the huts — it’s the people as much as anything,” Mr Hill said. “I am painfully aware this is heritage that is fast disappearing.
“It will only take a few more years and it will all be gone — no one will know what happened here, how tough life was. That’s why I’m hunting it down.”
The earliest huts date from the region’s gold rush of the 1860s, when the news of alluvial gold, buried in the ancient river beds, attracted thousands of prospectors from around the world.
Other huts date from the 1920s, when western graziers used the mountain valleys as a summer paddock and needed somewhere to stay as a temporary home.
Some were built by workers on the Snow Mountain hydroelectric scheme in the 1950s, while a few are primitive dwellings built by hermits escaping from themodern world.
The huts’ only use since the national park was gazetted in the 60s has been by trekkers seeking emergency shelter, or by families revisiting childhood memories.
Megan Bowden, the senior ranger responsible for the huts, has been closely involved in the detective work required to establish the social connections necessary to justify their restoration. “The work has been difficult because a lot of the people associated with the huts are at the age where they are passing on, and their stories are being lost,” she said.
“People are very attached to the huts — they have childhood memories of sitting around fires, boiling the billy, telling so many wonderful stories.”
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ORIGINAL COPY
John Stapleton
HUNDREDS of the long abandoned huts once scattered across the Snowy Mountains, built on public land without any present day niceties like council permission or building codes, have already disappeared, lost to bushfires, vandals or old age.
But 64 of the picturesque, heritage listed huts remain in the 673,000 hectare Kosciuszko National Park, ranging from substantially intact to barely detectable ruins. Many have names reflecting their colourful history: Plonkeys, Pugilistic Creek, Love Nest in the Sallees, Happy Jacks and Disappointment Spur.
Nineteen huts were badly damaged during the 2003 bush fire season; with some now little more than burnt stumps and blackened stone chimneys emerging from the snow drifts.
The huts were famous for “skulduggery”. They echo with stories of bored and lonely stockmen “getting on the grog”, of illegal whisky stills and wild parties, mysterious murders and illicit affairs. The wailing of a headless woman, dismembered after an angry miner found her rifling through his swag, is said to the haunt the alpine gullys still.
The destruction of the huts in 2003 was seen by heritage lovers and local historians as a great tragedy.
Defying convention, seven are to be rebuilt entirely and four substantially reconstructed using traditional materials and techniques.
Defying convention, seven are to be rebuilt entirely and four substantially reconstructed using traditional materials and techniques.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service have long been bound by the “Burra Convention” – in simple terms the equivalent of the Ten Commandments on how to manage European relics in national parks. The philosophy has been to let nature take its course and not to preserve or rebuild.
The Kosciuszko Huts Assocation and its best known member, folk historian 80-year-old Harry Hill, along with heritage enthusiasts from within National Parks, have challenged that tradition.
Harry Hill is as full of stories as the huts themselves, having produced a number of books about them, including Cooinbil, I Remember Rules Point, Old Currango and most recently a story on the impoverished lifestyles of the once remote region, He Was My Father.
Hill has become a master at tracking down obscure connections to the huts, convincing reticent elderly people to put on record their long buried memories, with one contact leading to another. “It is not just the huts, it is the people as much as anything.”
The earliest huts date from the regions gold rush of the 1860s, when the news of rich alluvial gold, buried in an ancient river bed 400 million years old, attracted thousands from around the world. Others date from the 1920s, when western graziers used the mountain valleys as a summer paddock. Yet others were built by Snow Mountain Scheme workers workers in the 1950s, while others were primitive dwellings built by hermits escaping the modern world.
Their only use since the park was gazetted in the 1960s has been by trekkers seeking emergency shelter; or by families revisting childhood memories.
In the 1940s Harry Hill was a young history teacher at Tumut in the western foothills of the Snowy Mountains, attempting to attract his students attention in the crowded classrooms of the day, when he discovered a fascination for his local area. He joined the Kosciuszko Huts Assocation during the 1970s after discovering the huts were in danger of disappearing, sometimes through purposeful destruction. “A few idiots who thought they were environmentalists would burn them down,” he recalled bitterly.
His efforts to preserve the huts were once little appreciated by National Parks and led him into conflict with park rangers. The relationship has reversed; with Hill now a much loved visitor at their offices in Tumut and the author of much of the material about them.
“I am painfully aware this is heritage that is fast disappearing,” he said. “It will only take a few more years and it will all be gone, no one will know what happened here, how tough life was. That is why I am hunting it down.”
Megan Bowden, the senior ranger responsible for the huts, has been closely involved in the detective work required to establish the social attachments necessary to justify their restoration.
“The work has been difficult because a lot of people associated with the huts are at the age where they are passing on, their stories are being lost,” she said. “People are very attached to thehuts, they have childhood memories of sitting around fires, boiling the billy, telling so many wonderful stories. We want people to still visit, to continue their connections.”
As part of National Park’s attempt to locate people with connections to the huts there has been public meetings in Tumut, Jindabyne and Canberra and notices placed in newspapers and on the web.
National Parks area manager Steve Cathcart said the shift to preserving cultural and social as well as natural heritage within the National Parks service had endeared them to the public. “The huts were not just these things built a century ago, they are still valued and used today,” he said. “The local community places a very high value on the huts, they are part of a living culture and inextricably linked to the history of the region.”