Snowy Mountains Song

Snowy River Hydro Scheme at Bonegilla

Roll, Roll, Roll on your way,
Snowy River roll on your way.
Roll on your way until judgement day,
Snowy River roll.

Show me a man who's a man among men,
Who'll stow his white collar and put down his pen.
Who'll go down a mountain and build you a dam,
Bigger and better than old Uncle Sam.
Roll, roll, roll on your way...

So sang the workers on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme in the 1960's. A visit to Bonegilla sheds an interesting light upon this chapter in Australia's growth and development. Hardy workers, mostly migrant, toiled in basic conditions to build 16 dams, 7 power stations and miles of tunnels to provide power generation as well as irrigation. Work lasted for 35 years after it commenced in 1949. I remember singing this song at school.

The dam wall

Birds relishing the updraft

Sometimes it's raining and sometimes it's pale

And sometimes it blows up a blizzardy gale

Sometimes it's fire and sometimes it's flood

And sometimes you're up to your eyeballs in mud.

Roll, roll, roll on your way

Snowy River roll on your way.

Roll on your way until judgement day,

Snowy River roll.

A tribute to the Snowy men, some who had left their country ravaged by World War 2.

As our Prime Minister at the time, Robert Menzies called them, "Big men", when he opened Tumut dam in 1958.