Our Lady of the Snows, Island Bend, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

The first church for workers in the Snowy Mountains Scheme, including some for the First Transport, was a Catholic one at Island Bend opened on Sunday, 13 January 1952. The church was named, fittingly, Our Lady of the Snows, it was at an altitude of more than 1,200 metres in the Australian Alps.

The small church, 42 feet by 22 feet or 12.8 x 6.7 metres, was built in six weeks by two Sydney contractors, Ralph Mitchell and Ken Palmer. They were assisted by men working on the Snowy Scheme, including refugees from the Transports. The men later presented the church free of debt to the Archbishop of Canberra, Goulburn and donated all the brassware needed for the altar.

Source:  Catholic Weekly, 21 February 1952 via Trove

The artwork within the church was executed by Dr Anton Bruckner, a nephew of the famous composer.  Dr Bruckner, former Professor of Philosophy at Prague University, was working at Island Bend. During the war years he was cruelly tortured by the Nazis and sentenced to death.  He was reprieved only a few hours before the sentence was carried out, supposed by Hitler himself, because of his relationship to the composer. 

Anton painted Da Vinci’s Last Supper to hang above the altar. He also gave the delicate lace veiling the tabernacle and edging the altar in memory of his wife and son gassed in a concentration camp.

Catholic workers at Island Bend met the cost of the furnishings and other equipment. The total population of the camp was between 500 and 600.

Afternoon Mass was celebrated there once a fortnight by the Rev. Father F. Bouchier who had been appointed to Jindabyne.

The silver ciborium was the gift of Italian workmen, in memory of Vincenco Pinazza, an Italian man killed while working in Guthega.  The statue of Mary came from a hotel owner in Jindabyne, the altar vases were another gift, and the convent in Cooma donated the Stations of the Cross.

A ciborium
Source:  Merriam Webster Dictionary

A Lithuanian from the First Transport, Aleksas Saulius, worked as a camp manager and helped build the church. He and another Lithuanian refugee, Vladas Rackauskas, from the Mozaffari voyage which reached Melbourne on 24 March 1949, the Twentieth Transport, painted the church green.

The title of the church at the highest in altitude in Australia was to be taken in the 1960s by another church, in Perisher, which is more than 1700 metres above sea level. As the Island Bend camp closed in 1965, the year after construction of the Perisher church started, the latter now carries the Our Lady of the Snows name.

After the closure of the camp, the church was included in the demolition.

SOURCES

Catholic Weekly (1952) ‘Snowy River Men Build Own Church’ Sydney, NSW, 10 January 1952. P 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146747887, accessed 28 October 2025.

Advocate (1954) ‘Chapel in the Mountains’ Melbourne, Vic, 16 December, p 24 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article172542268, accessed 28 October 2025.

Construction (1952) 'Australia's Highest Church' Sydney, NSW, 12 March, p.8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223547581, accessed 28 October 2025.

Sydney Morning Herald (1951) 'Professor Is A Shoe Polisher', NSW, 8 June, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18226656, accessed 28 October 2025.