Wee Jasper is a hamlet in the Goodradigbee valley at the western foot of the

Brindabella Ranges The Brindabella Range, commonly called The Brindabellas or The Brindies, is a mountain range located in Australia, on a state and territory border of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The range rises to the west o ...

, near

Burrinjuck Dam Burrinjuck Dam is a heritage-listed major gated concrete-walled gravity hydro-electric dam at Burrinjuck, Yass Valley Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It has three spillways across the Murrumbidgee River located in the South West Slopes regio ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in Yass Valley Shire. It is located about 90 km north-west of

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

and 60 km south-west of

Yass Yass may refer to: People * Catherine Yass (born 1963), painter * Yazz, a British pop singer from the 1980s and 1990s * Jeff Yass (born 1956), options trader, managing director and one of the five founders of the Philadelphia-based Susquehanna I ...

. At the , Wee Jasper and the surrounding area had a population of 127.

History and description

The place now known as Wee Jasper and the surrounding area of the Goodradigbee River valley lie on the traditional lands of the

Ngunnawal The Ngunnawal people, also spelt Ngunawal, are an Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Language Ngunnawal and Gundungurra are Australian Aboriginal languages from the Pama-Nyungan ...

people. The area lay outside the

Nineteen Counties The Nineteen Counties were the limits of location in the colony of New South Wales, Australia. Settlers were permitted to take up land only within the counties due to the dangers in the wilderness. They were defined by the Governor of New Sout ...

, in which the colonial government allowed colonial settlement; the

County of Buccleuch The County of Buccleuch is one of the 49 cadastral counties of South Australia. It was proclaimed in 1893 and named for the sixth Duke of Buccleuch, William Scott, of Scotland. It is located east of the Murray River at the south western edge o ...

and the neighbouring County of Cowley were not proclaimed, until 31 December 1848. The origin of the name Wee Jasper is unknown. It has been in use since at latest 1848, when it appeared as a single-word name 'Weejasper'. Although both 'Weejasper' and 'Wee Jasper' were used subsequently, it was not until 1970 that the village's name changed officially from 'Weejasper' to Wee Jasper. The name is possibly of Aboriginal origin. The

Hume and Hovell expedition The Hume and Hovell expedition was a journey of exploration undertaken in eastern Australia. In 1824 the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, commissioned Hamilton Hume and former Royal Navy Captain William Hovell to lead an expe ...

passed through the area in October 1824. Colonial settlement in the area dates from 1831, when a land grant at 'Cooradigbee' was made. It was one of the last free land grants in the colony of New South Wales, and it was only granted because it already had been promised by Governor Darling, in October 1830. On 9 January 1831,

Viscount Goderich Viscount Goderich was a title that was created twice in British history. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1706 in favour of Henry Grey, 12th Earl of Kent. He was made Marquess of Kent at the same time and was further honoure ...

instructed that no more free grants, except those already promised, be given. All land thereafter was to be sold at public auction. The land grant extinguished what would later—in 1992—become known as

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

over the land, effectively dispossessing the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

. There was a site for a village, to be known as Goodradigbee, proclaimed in 1866, but its design was cancelled in 1900. The cluster of settlement instead developed, further upstream on the river, nearer to the eventual site of the bridge, at what is now the village of Wee Jasper. 'Coodra Vale', a property close to Wee Jasper of 40,000 acres (16,188 ha), was the home of pastoralist,

Stewart Ryrie, Junior Stewart Ryrie, Junior (1812—1882) was a Scottish-born Australian pastoralist, surveyor and settler colonist of the Monaro district of New South Wales, Australia. He is associated with early colonial settlement of the Cooma and Jindabyne area ...

, from 1871 until his death in 1882. From 1908 to 1912, 'Coodra Vale' was the home of renowned Australian bush-poet, A.B. 'Banjo' Paterson; his poem, ''A Mountain Station'', was informed by the time he spent there as an agriculturalist. South of the village is the confluence of the Goodradigbee and its tributary, Wee Jasper Creek. Gold was found and mined along this creek, in the 1890s, when it was known as 'The Wee Jasper'. The Goodradigbee Goldfield, which included the area, was proclaimed in 1882, but was revoked in 1897. Although mining took place, the area was not a significant mining area. The bridge across the Goodradigbee River, at Wee Jasper, opened in September 1896, providing a better connection from the area to Yass and Tumut. The filling of the

, during the 1920s, resulted in the inundation of part of the valley, downstream from the village. More land was inundated later, when the dam wall was raised. Wee Jasper had a police station by 1887. Wee Jasper Post Office was first opened in January 1886 and closed in March 1892. Three years later, it was reopened again and remained in service until 1994. There is a school at Wee Jasper, which opened as a provisional school in 1899 and achieved public school status in 1918. Wee Jasper had a Catholic church, now repurposed. Near the village are several camping and recreation reserves close to numerous caves. The best known cave is Carey's Cave, a system of seven caverns lying just north of the town. Others lie to the north and south, including Dip, Dogleg, Punch-bowl and Signature Caves. Fossils, including members of the

Acanthothoracid Acanthothoraci (''spine chests'') is an extinct group of chimaera-like placoderms who were closely related to the rhenanid placoderms. Superficially, the acanthoracids resembled scaly chimaeras, or (relatively) heavily armored ptyctodonts. Th ...

placoderm fish family Weejasperaspididae, the primitive placoderm ''

Brindabellaspis stensioi ''Brindabellaspis stensioi'' ("Erik Stensiö's Brindabella Ranges Shield") is a placoderm with a flat, platypus-like snout from the Early Devonian of the Taemas-Wee Jasper reef in Australia. When it was first discovered in 1980, it was originally ...

'' and the prehistoric

lungfish Lungfish are freshwater vertebrates belonging to the order Dipnoi. Lungfish are best known for retaining ancestral characteristics within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air, and ancestral structures within Sarcopterygii, i ...

, '' Dipnorhynchus cathlesae'', have been found in the area.

Heritage listings

Wee Jasper has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * 278 Main Road: Wee Jasper Bridge over Goodradigbee River

Gallery

Image:Wee jasper town sign 2008.jpg, Wee Jasper town sign Image:Wee jasper bridge 2008.jpg, The main bridge spanning the

Goodradigbee River Goodradigbee River, a perennial stream that is part of the Murrumbidgee catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the Snowy Mountains district of New South Wales, Australia. Course and features The river rises below Mount Mo ...

going into Wee Jasper

Climate

Wee Jasper has an identical climate to that of

Batlow Batlow is a town in the South West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia, on the edge of the Great Dividing Range, 775 m above sea level. Batlow is well known for its apples. About 50 growers in the district supply 1.6 million cas ...

; comprising warm, stormy summers and cold, very wet winters with moderate to heavy

snowfalls Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

. Maximum temperatures are significantly cooler than regions of similar altitude in the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

, owing to its

windward Windward () and leeward () are terms used to describe the direction of the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e. towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point of reference ...

position on the western slopes of the

Brindabella Range The Brindabella Range, commonly called The Brindabellas or The Brindies, is a mountain range located in Australia, on a state and territory border of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The range rises to the west of ...

References

{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Southern Tablelands Yass Valley Council