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The Grand Bisse de Lens came with a warning. Passage vertigineux. Starting near the village of Lens, a thickly afforested tunnel along an exuberantly bubbling canal led us on red pine needles and over the thick roots of ancient trees. Mechanisms that control the bisse, such as sluice gates, wheels, and clay tunnels were all around us. As we stepped on the wooden platform girdling the bulging Châtelard Hill, the narrow path, with a steep drop on one side, demanded steady focus. Blackberries enticed, but there would be more where the path widened. For now, I held on to the rope attached to the hillside when admiring the views of the hills, farms and vineyards beyond the plunging valley. The bisse made me come alive and I felt thankful towards the people who carved these channels and those who maintain them regularly, clearing the pebbles, leaf mulch and twigs. This was more than a walk. It had the melodic percussion of a jaltarang, with its series of musical instruments embedded in the ever-changing vessels of flow. Wood basins, clay pipes and metallic boards elicited the sloshing, spraying and jingling music of water.
Beyond the need for irrigation, the Swiss maintain their bisses to honour their history, to keep their valleys moist and to have ready water in case of forest fires. And now, bisse tourism has taken off, as people come looking to hike along these spine-tingling paths.
Geetika Jain
Beyond the vertiginous section, the views opened up to the Rhone Valley and while the glistening river and the villages on either side was a magnificent sight, it felt like stepping back to the everyday, after a transporting wander in a bygone arcadia.
It felt so good to walk and walk over the three days, especially in the crystalline, leaf-and-trunk scented air. Somewhere along the way I’d come across the French idiom, On n’a pas racines, on a des pieds. We don’t have roots. We have feet. We came here to do what we were built to do, to walk to our heart’s content. The legacy of the bisse makers shall remain a lasting one.
Geetika Jain can be followed on Insta @geetikaforest
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