Slide depicting Bill Fegan at Diggers Creek molding a snowball during the construction of the Snowy Scheme

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Type: Photographic slides
Date: 1968
Place: Diggers Creek, Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
Materials: Paper, Photographic emulsion, Plastic - non specific
Collection: Snowy Scheme - Bill Fegan collection
Accession number: 2007.0017.0004

Description

A 35mm colour slide in a Kodak brand white cardboard mount. It depicts Bill Fegan standing in a snowy landscape at Diggers Creek and molding a snowball in his hands. He is wearing a beanie, yellow waterproof jacket and dark trousers. "AUGUST 1968" is printed on the mount.

About the collection

The Snowy Scheme - Bill Fegan Collection consists of several objects relating to Bill's work in 1967 on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme. They are a 'pelican' (combined pick and shovel), three photographs and a pair of weatherproof work over-trousers. The Snowy Scheme is Australia's largest engineering work and one of the great engineering feats of the world. Designed to produce irrigation water and electricity, the Scheme took 25 years to construct, 1949-74. Including 7 power stations, 16 dams and 225 kilometres of aqueducts and tunnels, the Scheme was built by a workforce of 100,000 people, two-thirds of whom came from overseas. The scheme played a major part in making Australia multi-cultural, and also in developing Australia's manufacturing, technical and engineering capacities. This collection, consisting of a work tool unique to the Snowy, work trousers illustrating the wet and difficult conditions of tunnelling, and photographs mainly of Bill at work and at leisure, reflects a range of aspects of the experience of working men on the project.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 7:06:42 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-17. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.