The 'backbone' of the cattle industry, Indigenous drovers star in a permanent photographic exhibition in outback Queensland. Their portraits draw a relatively unknown part of bush history out of the shadows.
The "unsung heroes" and "backbone" of the cattle industry, Aboriginal Australians have a long history as stockmen and drovers across the country's north.
He was born and bred on Rocklands Station, a cattle property just over two hours' drive north of Camooweal, a North West Queensland town close to the Northern Territory border.Now retired, Mr Saltmere followed in his father's footsteps to become a full-time drover at just 13 years old. "There's a lot of unsung heroes out there that have never been talked about … a lot of history there," he said.The exhibition titled Unsung heroes of the outback and the cattle industry has 15 portraits and holds a permanent space inside the Drovers Camp Museum at Camooweal, 200 kilometres north of Mount Isa.
"It's almost a race to photograph some of the older people because … a lot of them are gone," he said."It can be pretty confronting sometimes," he said. "I really like the idea of taking the person out of their normal context, so there's no bush around or anything like that — it's a focus on the ."Before moving north to Camooweal from her country on the Simpson Desert, Wangkangurru Yarluyandi woman Josie Rowlands said she knew very little about Aboriginal history in the cattle industry.
North West Queensland Cattle Droving Aboriginal Drovers Cattlemen Portraits Photographic Exhibition Drovers Camp Museum Cattle Industry
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