Wooden pack saddle consisting of an A-shaped timber frame with items attached by wire, chains and straps
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- Type
- Saddles
- Place
- Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, Australia; Ingeegoodbee River, New South Wales, Australia; Jindabyne, New South Wales, Australia
- Materials
- Aluminium, Enamelled metal, Ferrous metal - non specific, Leather, Wood
- Collection
- John Swain collection
- Accession number
- 2002.0026.0001
Description
A wooden pack saddle consisting of an A-shaped timber frame with items attached by wire, chains and straps. Attached items include a pocket knife; stirrup; leather and fur segments; metal tools; wooden gilding tongs; horseshoe; plaited leather bridle; enamelled mug; and metal dish, plate and two other containers.
About the collection
John Swain spent many years living and working in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales. He has offered the National Museum of Australia a pack saddle used by Charles Carter, a brumby trapper and miner who led a solitary life in the Snowy Mountains for the most part of the period between 1898 and 1952, the year of his death. The pack saddle is a unique item which appears to have been hand crafted by its owner, Charles Carter. It still holds what are believed by John Swain to be Carter's personal belongings and tools of his trade as a trapper (crockery, pocket knife, spare leather bridle and horseshoe). The saddle is significant as one of the few possessions belonging to Carter, who became somewhat of a local identity due to his elusive behaviour, his clashes with neighbours over land use and stock ownership, his eccentric pursuit of a cure for cancer and his published manifestos on political and social issues. Carter lived alone and was said to have never married, making a living from cattle raising, brumby trapping and prospecting. His pack saddle also speaks of a self-sufficient lifestyle in the remote parts of the Snowy Mountains and the importance of brumby trapping in the region in economic, social and environmental terms.
Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 6:16:00 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-17. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.