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Saas - Almagell
| Article
# : |
15819 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1989 |
4,295 Words |
| Author
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Ronald Kurtz
Ronald Kurtz is a professor of anthropology at Grinnell
College in Grinnell, Iowa. |
When Americans think of Swiss ski villages, they conjure up glamorous portraits of St. Moritz, Zermatt, Verbier, and perhaps Crans- Mountana and Saas-Fee. But there is another world of Swiss tourist villages catering to hikers in the summer and skiers in the winter, one very different from those glamorous international ski areas. In fact, the greater number of Swiss mountain ski areas are small, unassuming villages that have only recently made the transition from agrarian life to one dependent on tourism. Saas-Almagell, the most remote of the villages of the Saastal, 26 kilometers south of the Rhone Valley town of Visp, is one of these. It is German - speaking, Catholic, formerly agrarian, and has a traditional aura.
Although Almagell has long been exposed to outside cultural influences from the Swiss metropolitan areas and other European countries, only within the last thirty years has it become a modernized village. The patterns of Almagell life, especially its change from an agrarian base while remaining its tradition and continuity, show fundamental continuity juxtaposed against major economic change.
Saas - Almagell: Environment And Seasonality
Saas - Almagell is situated at 1,679 meters' elevation, with slopes rising directly to 3,300 meters to the east and west. The floor of the valley broadens out at the village to as much as 350 meters, and artificial terraces carry small meadows and gardens up the slopes a short way on either side. Larch forests extend up to timberline at 2,200 meters.
To the northeast, the rocky slopes rise
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