VOICES FROM THE PAST

The hydroelectric power revolution

"Our canton is experiencing a complete upheaval. Suddenly things are starting to happen, to come alive. Everywhere, people want to make up for lost time, amazed that we have been somnolent for so long. This small country is suddenly discovering within itself the ambition to become a great nation."
Jean Follonier ,  Le Choucas, no. 25, 1957

"I know that some people, those who are more willing to look to the future than to the present, said to us 'Why make so much effort, why spend so much money, when there is nuclear energy on our doorstep which will solve, as if by magic, all those problems which at the moment seem so difficult?' (…) But, contrary to what is often said, the applications and the arrival of nuclear energy are neither simple, because of the many problems which remain to be solved, nor particularly cheap. So there is nothing revolutionary about it, anyway, nothing which might divert us from our objective, which is to give our country, and particularly its industry, the energy it needs by continuing to harness our waterfalls, which are inexhaustible and cheap sources of energy over which we have absolute control."
Jean- François Munier , Le Choucas, no. 22, 1956

The workers

"This unity is similar to that which, in the past, bound together the first Swiss citizens of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwald, when they formed a close alliance to defend their common ideal. Our ideal is to complete our immense task successfully, but that cannot happen without mutual trust between one another, a trust between workers and employees and their superiors which is like the trust between friends. The results achieved so far at all the sites clearly show how far we can rely on that trust to achieve our aim, in spite of the difficulties encountered in tunnel, dam or power station and in spite of the rigours of the winter or summer weather in the high mountains."
Louis Favrat, one of the managers of Grande Dixence S.A., in a message dated 1st August , Le Choucas, no. 15, 1955

Living conditions

"Without wanting to seem boastful, there are no construction sites in the high mountains whose social organisation is quite as advanced. Are we not at the forefront in all the new measures aimed at improving the lot and the well-being of workers? There is the agreement made in 1953, the existence of a works council, the establishment of a system of productivity bonuses, the gradual improvement in workers’ well-being (accommodation, canteen, transport etc.) and their relations with management. Then there is the extension and fitting-out of our central infirmary, already regarded as a site hospital by the Swiss national accident insurance office (CNA), with its two doctors, two nuns and its health care staff, the spiritual work of the chaplaincy which is so morally beneficial, and so much more."
Jean-François Munier,  Bilan d’activité du service social, Le Choucas, no. 22, 1956

The poetic eye

"And suddenly I saw the Dixence. It is on the same scale as the mountains (…). I was amazed by it and said to myself, flowers in hand, 'Rejoice! Go, look again at this work, for it is the foundation, the cornerstone, the touchstone, the stumbling block of the new country'.

The centre of the Valais is there and the story of the stone begins: crushed, broken up, carried away to other installations and finally becoming the concrete in a huge wall.

I entered the mountains in the depths of one crocus-covered valley, shaken by avalanches, and I came out in another, far away. From Cheilon to the Hohwäng site, opposite the Matterhorn, it is twenty kilometres via the large collection conduit which collects all the water from the Vispa, every branch of every spring, every waterfall, every mountain stream which flows from the ice which encircles Zermatt on the immense horizon. The large collection conduit has its secondary branches, its shafts, its culverts; all the waters of the glaciers which flow towards the Dixence."
Maurice Chappaz, Journal intime d’un pays, Treize Etoiles, September 1960.

"In a few days houses, offices, kitchens, shops, warehouses, infirmaries, inns and even a little church spring from the ground. Fantastic installations rise towards the heavens, giant bridges run from one side of the gorge to the other, a hundred or two hundred metres above the ground: trucks travel in mid-air along vertigo-inducing highways. Machines roar night and day; at night, huge floodlights illuminate the site and iron monsters cast long shadows right up to the glacier."

"In the gorge, teams strip off the surface of the rock, dig out, clean and wash the base of the dam with large, powerful jets of water. High above the ground, you can see cable cars moving, and hear their steel cables squeaking on the pulleys. What strange birds are these that rise and descend without resting, on routes which are always the same? From time to time, as he passes by, a man waves to you."
Maurice Zermatten, L’eau de lumière : l’épopée de la construction d’un barrage, 1960.