by Skiing in Victoria is a popular past time and a big tourist industry. But before the modern resorts we are familair with, there was: skiing on Mount Donna Buang.
Skiing has a long history.
The oldest ski-like artefacts are from central Russia, and date from around 6 000 BCE. These early skis were primitive; cumbersome slabs of wood with rope ties, they we used mainly for hunting.
Their usefulness in snowy conditions meant they spread quickly, and by the middle of that millennium are thought to have been widespread across northern Europe.
Other applications for skis are more recent, and can also be traced to that region.
In the 18th century, the Norwegian Army began using skis for manoeuvres. This lead to a higher profile for skiing, and a greater number of people proficient in it.
Cross country skiing then took hold as a recreational past time.
By the 19th century, Alpine skiing, featuring curated runs down designated slopes, slowly became popular. Ski resorts and lodges were built across the continent, wherever there was reliable snow fall.
It was also a Norwegian who brought recreational skiing to Australia.
In 1919, Hilda Samsing, a former Norwegian nurse, settled in Victoria and took over a hotel in the north east of the state, at Mount Buffalo. Samsing’s ‘Buffalo Chalet’, still the largest wooden building in Australia, offered comfortable accommodation to tourists looking to explore the region’s national parks.
Visitor numbers were greatly reduced during the winter months, to try and bring in new business, Samsing began offering recreational skiing on the local slopes. This was a novelty in Australia at the time, where skiing was mostly unknown.
Now this new sport quickly found an audience.
In the 1920s, Samsing’s resort grew popular and spawned imitators; other resorts opened in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. Ski clubs were formed, and businesses began selling equipment to local enthusiasts.
But Mount Buffalo, and other early Victorian ski fields like Mount Feathertop, were relatively distant from Melbourne. Automotive travel was primitive, and regional public transport limited; these shortcomings compounded the difficulties of travelling during winter. Accessing these early ski fields was difficult.
Mount Donna Buang, the closest mountain to Melbourne with consistent winter snow, offered a possible alternative.
At the foot of the mountain lies the small town of Warburton.
Warburton had been founded in the 1860s during the gold rush, and at its peak had been home to a few thousand prospectors. But the gold ran out fairly quickly, the prospectors moved on, and the town shrunk to a small hub, servicing the timber industry that worked the local forests.
Hoping to revive the town’s fortunes, in the 1920s the Warburton Progress Association hit on the idea of using nearby Mount Donna Buang for skiing. Warburton was close to Melbourne and accessible year-round by train; the town needed the business, Melbournians wanted a convenient place to ski.
In June 1924, the Association invited several skiers to inspect the mountain.
At 1250 metres, Donna Buang is not tall enough to guarantee regular snow, but the snow cover was sufficient that the idea gained momentum. Backed by the Victorian Ski Club, one ski field was cleared, and made available for use in the winter of 1925.
‘The snow was lightly packed, but after a few runs over the same tracks the pace was much accelerated. It has been established, that suitable snow does lie on the mountain for many weeks during winter.’
-Mount Donna Buang skier, 1927
These early attempts uncovered a host of problems.
While Mount Donna Buang is not especially tall, it is thickly forested, and only the area close to summit was suitable for skiing. Accessing the ski field proved difficult: the walking track was too steep to manage with equipment, and the road was small and frequently inaccessible, either due to snow or fallen trees.
The first ski slope was amateurish: narrow, short and dotted with debris.
Despite these drawbacks, the project’s backers were persistent and raised funds to improve both the road, and the slope.
By 1931, they appeared to have been successful. The ski slope was cleared of debris each summer, and Mount Donna Buang now featured other comforts to improve the visitor experience: a ski lodge, overnight accommodation, a kiosk, and a first aid station.
Ski equipment was available for hire.
The road to the summit was still impassable at times, but a large carpark was built just below, at a spot called ‘Ten Mile Turntable’. A short walking track connected this to the ski run.
Now properly set up, the mountain surged in popularity.
Newspaper reports from the era note increasing numbers of visitors to Mount Donna Buang when there was good snow coverage.
2 000 visitors were estimated on one day in August 1932, and 5 000 in August 1934. The Argus reported a peak of 12 000 visitors in July, 1935. These impressive numbers stretched the capacity of the facilities; many people had come not to ski but to sight see, and spilled over onto the ski runs due to overcrowding.
Large fences were built to separate spectators from participants, and new ski runs were opened to manage the traffic. By 1937, the mountain featured six separate runs, and had become Victoria’s most popular ski destination.
But one issue that could never be resolved was the erratic snow coverage.
Some winter’s were better than others, but most year’s Mount Donna Buang received only intermittent snow, which greatly reduced the ski season. Other factors also combined to reduce its importance.
In the summer of 1939, Victoria was hit with its worst ever bushfires.
Starting on January 13, ‘Black Friday’, fires raged out of control for months. Two million hectares of bush would be consumed, thousands of buildings destroyed, and 71 lives lost.
A number of regional towns were completely obliterated.
‘It appeared that the whole State was alight. At midday, in many places, it was dark as night. Men carrying hurricane lamps, worked to make safe their families and belongings. Travellers on the highways were trapped by fires or blazing fallen trees. Throughout the land there was daytime darkness.’
– Royal Commission report into the 1939 fires
The Yarra Valley was badly impacted, with forests ravaged and timber mills burnt out. Most of the ski buildings on Mount Donna Buang, were destroyed.
It was the beginning of the end.
Skiing, and recreational activities more generally, declined during World War II.
A large portion of the population was overseas on active duty, the country’s mood was sombre. Past-times like skiing were consderied frivolous.
After the war, skiiers returned to Mount Donna Buang, but its popularity was waning.
Improvements in transport infrastructure, roads and rail lines, were making it easier to access ski destinations with more robust snowfall. From the late 1940s, the Victorian Alpine region, centred around Bright, would become the centre of skiing in the state.
Ski clubs began moving their headquarters away from Mount Donna Buang; the Victorian Ski Club was the last to leave, in 1951.
The effort required to keep the ski runs clear ceased as people stopped coming, and the forest began to reclaim the cleared areas. The few buildings that had been reconstructed after the fires fell into disrepair.
Only a few small remnants of these remain, hidden in the bush.
Skiing had ceased on the mountain by the middle of the 1950s. It would later be outlawed entirely, viewed as a danger to the hikers and sightseeing families, that now made up the bulk of the mountain’s visitors.
What a find! We forget these events that we participated in so many years ago. I was in the Cubs – the junior Boy Scouts – and aged about 9 or 10 when we visited Donna with the Third Ivanhoe Methodist Scout leaders. There was only one good slope, as I recall, and no tows or lifts – you had to walk up with your old fashioned wooden planks of skis.
Us kids skidded down the slopes hanging on to sheets of corrugated iron left there for this purpose. Was such a different experience to ‘be up at the snow’ and had almost forgotten that we were there seventy years ago.
Many thanks for the report. (And can you imagine how strong were the churches and scouts in those days – just one of the several Protestant churches in Ivanhoe had four scout troops. And no issues with walking two kilometres at night to Cubs and back home by myself to the other side of Eaglemont.)
It’s nice to see another article on Donna’s history. You have obviously drawn on my long article “Donna Buang: the forgotten ski resort”, but you have interpreted the information slightly different and given the reader your own take on the subject. Well done, I’ll have a look at your other articles on what looks like an interesting web site.
Thanks for having a look! I did read your article, among some other reading, and it is excellent. Highly recommended. I only learned about the ski resort when I hiked up the mountain a couple of months back, had not read that it was a ski resort prior.