This photograph of Alowidgee on a canoe was taken at the Maloga Mission, near modern day Barmah, on the banks of the Murray River on the New South Wales side, probably in the late 19th century.
He is steering a flat canoe made in the ‘Murray River style’, probably from River Red Gum bark. Today the nearby Barmah-Millewa Forest forms the largest River Red Gum forest in the world.
Alowidgee was a Yorta Yorta man. The Maloga Mission was founded by European missionaries in 1874 and people of the Yorta Yorta Nation and other tribal groups from the Murray River region were moved here. In 1889 most of the residents of Maloga relocated to nearby Cummeragunja in protest at the strict religious rules of Maloga.