Roof of Australia

This 1957 mini-documentary gives an insight into the mammoth undertaking that was the construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme. Migrants from 30 different nations who came to work on the scheme were accommodated in specially built towns like Cabramurra in New South Wales.

It was European migrants in the 1940s and ‘50s, with their centuries-old traditions, who opened up Australia's alpine regions and turned them into winter playgrounds: an emerging middle class kick-started the Australian tradition of 'heading to the snow'.  

The film, made by the Commonwealth Film Unit, captures the early days of this boom – and the exhilaration of shooting down pristine slopes.