The fortunes of the town were affected by the discovery of gold at nearby Kiandra in 1859 and subsequent introduction of recreational skiing to the district around 1861, when Scandinavian gold prospectors are reputed to have strapped fence posts to their boots and slid down the snowbound hills of a landscape too frozen for mining. For around a century, Kiandra remained Australia's highest township and a base for skiers, before the last permanent residents left the township following completion of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Kiandra's ski facilities were permanently shifted up the hill to Selwyn Snowfields in 1978 and Adaminaby remains the main service centre for the Northern skifields of New South Wales-one of the oldest areas for recreational skiing in the world.