For more than 20,000 years the Snowy region was home to the Ngarigo people and a number of other Aboriginal peoples. White settlement meant that in the 1800s the Ngarigo people were forced from their lands.

Up until the mid 20th century the Snowy was the province of farmers and high country horsemen as immortalised on Banjo Patterson’s poem The Man from Snowy River.

But after WWII, it was populate or perish and in this environment the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electricity Scheme was built. Over 100,000 people from over thirty countries came to the mountains to work on the Scheme.

For this episode I recommend you read or listen to The Man from Snowy River:

http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/paterson-a-b-banjo/the-man-from-snowy-river-0001004

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_-DKUimeo

Email me at: [email protected]

Music courtesy of Dan-O at: http://www.danosongs.com/

Thanks to Ken Dampier for post-production.