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| Nunayak
Rafting |
| Rafting Canyoning Canoe-rafting |
| Airboat Hydrospeed |
| Via ferrata in Haute-Savoie |
| Résidence Les Rhodos |
| Avenue du Giffre |
| 74340 SAMOENS |
| Tél : 04.50.93.86.74
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| Mobile : 06.75.72.84.21 |
| Email : contact@nunayak.com |
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A
brief history lesson |
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| Although
the original human inhabitants of the
valley may have come for many different
reasons, all would have faced the same
struggle to carve out a place to live
amidst nature at its rawest. The iron
ore to be found locally offered a way
of escaping the uncertainty of farming
in these mountains. . |
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| Farmers
and herders for centuries, the locals
were also miners, stone carvers, peddlars
and also smugglers.
From 1860,
the valley began to attract visitors
who flocked to see the splendours
that nature had decided to gather
together in one place.
The locals
would help guide the new arrivals
up mountains and some of them gradually
transformed their homes into guest-houses,
or built hotels and later ski-lifts.
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| After
the famous Abbey was built, the valley's
population started to grow. Generation
after generation, man has cleared land
for use in farming and animal husbandry. |
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| In
turn this led to the creation of a dairy
industry. But the climate held down
yields, and the early farmers suffered
from a series of natural disasters:
landslides, fires, floods. |
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Mountain
peasants organised themselves around the need for
fodder to feed their animals. Thus they would have
three houses, and over the course of the year they
would move families, cattle and equipment in search
of the precious "green gold". The main
farmhouse would be on the valley floor or lower
slopes: grass here would be cut for hay in the summer,
with a second cut in the autumn, and stored for
winter food.
In the spring the farmers
would get moving: they would take their herds
to "foris", small houses surrounded
by grazing pasture, at intermediate altitudes.
The annual cycle would be completed with the "montagnage",
the climb to their high alpine pastures in early
summer, by which time the grass would be sufficiently
high and nourishing after the disappearance of
winter's snow. When the snow returned they would
leave the mountain, returning to their village
for the winter -- the démontagnage.
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The
valley's "mining frenzy" began
in 1807, as people attempted to extract
copper, silver, lead, iron and gold.
A series of individuals took on ownership
of the mines which remained in operation,
albeit only for pretty slim pickings
of iron ore, extracted in dangerous
circumstances, until 1853.
Jacques Balmat, the first man to climb
Mont Blanc, died in the Mont Ruan area
at the age of 72 whilst prospecting
for gold.
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| As
with other Alpine valleys, Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval
was "discovered" by English
tourists, seduced by the "splendours
that nature has chosen to bring together
in one place". |
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| A
generation of stone carvers was born,
spread out along the upper Giffre valley.
Their reputation spread beyond the valley's
narrow confines. In summer they would
leave the valley to work on building
sites throughout Europe. This form of
summer emigration is specific to the
upper Giffre. |
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| This
was followed by the construction of
the first mountain refuges, the railway
linking Annemasse to Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval,
and the first ski lifts. The tourist
adventure had been transformed into
a key part of the economy. |
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