Rafting adventures on the river Durance
© P. Masclaux
Well before the joys of rafting were discovered, mountain dwellers used to float their timber down the Durance river, as far as Arles. A perilous tradition, revived by their successors every June, in the course of the Durance festivities.
Originally, mountain farmers would use the strength of the current to float their timber to urban centres in Provence. A dangerous and sometimes deadly manoeuvre, which has been rediscovered by Denis Forestier. "When I was studying to become a mountain guide, I came across the stories of raftsmen in the archives" he tells us. "I wanted to illustrate this aspect of people's lives here in the area, between the Middle Ages and the beginning of the 20th century."
And so it is that several decades after the disappearance of the real-life raft navigators, due to competition from the railways, men dress up in old fashioned clothes, jackets with white or check shirts and thick woollen trousers, and then step into the river's flow.
Departing from L'Argentière-la-Bessée, these newly appointed raftsmen embark upon huge rafts, slippery crafts 15 to 25 metres long, made of larch logs lashed together with branches of supple ash wood. A crew of six is needed to steer, using poles and a pair of rudders operated by two strong helmsmen.
These days, the odyssey finishes at Embrun, before the Serre-Ponçon dam, while in the old days the loggers would travel on down the river to Arles and Perthuis – whenever they managed to get that far…
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Topic : Art and cultural heritage
Published on : 2008/12/23
Tags : comeback raftsmen
