Log in


Forgot your password?
 
You are here: Home » Field Visits » Biosphere Park » Settlement

Settlement


How the Great Walser Valley was settled

The v-shaped valley with its steep sides is also called a „Tobel“ or mountain torrent by the native people.  This explains why the Great Walser Valley with its many tributaries along the river Lutz, is known by many here as the mountain torrent with the many torrents.  The region has always been and to this day, still is, a difficult  place to implement any kind of infrastructure.  It is a side valley in the Walgau region and the end of the valley borders on the Faschina Pass in the Bregenzerwald - or Bregenz Forest.   

Today we know that the first settlers were Raeto-Romanian or Romansh speaking people of Switzerland that came here in the 11th or 12th centuries.   During the 14th century the German speaking Walser Forest people started to settle in the unsettled areas and scattered their houses and farms all over the steep slopes of the valley.  In this way they ousted the Romanian population.  The Habsburgs reigned over the villages in Vorarlberg from their castles in the Tyrol and fore Austria (Fribourg in Breisgau).  From 1805 to 1814, the Great Walser Valley belonged to Bavaria, and later again to Austria.


By order of the Count of Monfort, the inhabitants of the Great Walser Valley kept a check on the passes and borders of this impassable region, and as payment  were allowed to call themselves free farmers.  They only had to pay a small amount to the land lord.  This explains why, to this day, the Walser Valley people have a love of freedom.


For a long time, dairy farming and animal husbandry were the only ways to make a living.  They only grew enough crops to feed themselves.  Gastronomy and small businesses or trade businesses only started to play a role in the last few decades.  


For hundreds of years, the people in the Great Walser Valley were completely cut off from the rest of the world, a fact that has left its mark.  If you take the time, you will discover that they have an independent culture, an independent dialect and even an independent philosophy of life.  
Taste 1