Skis - Kiandra Kick-ins
Date Published
: Leisure
: Snowy Mountains
: Kiandra
: c.1880
Skis - Kiandra Kick-ins
Skis
The National Historical Collection of the National Museum of Australia contains a pair of wooden skis. Dating from about 1880, they are thought to have been made in Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales and were owned by the Yen family of what is now referred to as ‘Old’ Adaminaby.
What is not widely known, however, is that at Kiandra many of the most enthusiastic and skilled participants in the new sport of downhill skiing were Chinese men and women.
Initially segregated from European skiers, Chinese skiers were often seen and portrayed as curiosities. Well-known Kiandra identity, Bill Hughes, recalled in a conversation with author Elyne Mitchell in 1985:
The most colourful picture which has been handed down to us is that of special races for Chinese miners on the field; a heat of a dozen or so Chinese streaming down Township Hill, screaming and shrieking with pig-tails flying in the wind, freely lambasting with their long poles any rival who happened to get ahead.
