In the 1960s and 1970s, Tasmania’s Hydro Electric Commission was getting a little bit carried away trying to industrialise Tasmania. The HEC wanted to build as many dams as possible; to generate cheap power and attract industrial development to the ‘Dream Isle’. Pristine, remote river systems were seen as a blank canvas. There were a number of different dams proposed on the Gordon River. Only one of them was built. And it stands to this day. The Gordon Dam, built above the Serpentine.
Big boulder, First Split. Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2024.
There was a dam proposed for the Gordon below the Franklin, and this one sparked all the protests in the early 1980s. An alternative was suggested by the labour government. The Gordon above Olga. This dam would have flooded the Gordon Splits. It was voted down in a referendum, with about a third of people writing No Dams on their ballot. In the end, the State Government of Tasmania decided to build the Gordon below Franklin Dam after all.
Thanks to the brave defenders of the Franklin, this dam was never built. Over a thousand people were arrested at the time.
Rift in the rock, First Split. Some people say the rivers in South-West Tasmania are older than the mountains. A lot of the rivers run across the grain of the land, east to west. The mountains run north to south. One explanation is that the rivers were there before the mountains, and as the rocks got gradually elevated, the rivers cut through them. Perhaps this is what happened at the Gordon Splits. Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2024.
The Gordon Dam still holds back the Gordon River, Tasmania’s longest river. I have talked to paddlers who have walked down the Gordon, below the Dam, when the generator was under maintenance, and there was no flow at all in the river. We had quite a bit of flow when we were there. And that reminded me.
The river wants to flow, and maybe one day it will.
The fabled First Split. The dam proposed as the alternative to the Gordon below Franklin Dam would have flooded this place. Thankfully neither of those dams was built. Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2024.