Finhaut

Finhaut
State :	Switzerland
Canton :	Valais (VS)
District :	Saint-Maurice
BFS no. :	6214
Postal code :	1925
Coordinates :	564349  /  103764 coordinates: 46 ° 5 '4 "  N , 6 ° 58' 40"  O ; CH1903:  564349  /  103764
Height :	1224  m above sea level M.
Height range :	848–2838 m above sea level M.
Area :	22.82  km²
Residents:	379 (December 31, 2018)
Population density :	17 inhabitants per km²
Website:	www.finhaut.ch
Le Châtelard
Location of the municipality

Finhaut is a political municipality and a civic municipality in the district of Saint-Maurice in the French-speaking part of the canton of Valais in Switzerland .

The localities Giétroz and Le Châtelard also belong to the municipality of Finhaut . The latter in turn is divided into the old core settlement Châtelard-Village and the border settlement Châtelard-Frontière .

geography

Finhaut

Finhaut lies in the upper part of the Vallée du Trient , through which the Trient , a tributary of the Rhone , flows.

The border with France is marked by a series of mountain peaks in the Valais Alps : Pointe de la Finive ( 2838  m above sea level ), Le Cheval Blanc ( 2831  m above sea level ), Pointe de la Terrasse ( 2732  m above sea level ) and Les Perrons ( 2674  m above sea level ). These four peaks in the west of the municipality enclose a valley in which the Lac du Vieux Emosson is dammed by the Vieux-Emosson arch dam (completed in 1955). In the east, in the direction of the discharge, lies the Emosson valley basin, where the lower part of Lac d'Emosson lies in the municipality, which is dammed by the Emosson arch dam (completed in 1975). La Barberine , the lake outflow running to the south, forms the border with France, which was the subject of an exchange of territory in the area of ​​the dam. In the valley of the Eau Noire flowing to the east , into which the Barberine flows, the villages of Le Châtelard-Frontière , Le Châtelard-Village and of them slightly above Giétroz , on the slope of Bel Oiseau ( 2628  m above sea level , southern summit) are on the left. - L'Eau Noir also forms the municipal boundary to Trento. To the north of the Tête Noire ( 1199  m above sea level ) in Trient , Eau Noire flows into Le Trient and thus into the main valley; north of the confluence lies the village of Finhaut on a south-facing slope . To the east of Finhaut runs the municipal boundary to Salvan, which from Eau Noir describes the Tête de la Boffa ( 1426  m above sea level ) including an arc to the Mont de la Barme ( 2307  m above sea level ) and to the west over to lowest of the three La Rebarme peaks ( 2421  m above sea level ). In a south-westerly direction, the border runs across the slope of the Dent de Fenestral to the northern summit of Bel Oiseau ( 2643  m above sea level ). Between the Bel Oiseau and the Oeil de Boeuf ( 2653  m above sea level ), which is followed by the Pointe de la Finive , lies the Vallon de Barberine , in which the Lac d'Emosson lies. The municipal boundary runs at the narrowest point between the Vallon and the Emosson valley basin, and the old Barberine weight wall (completed in 1925), which is located in the middle of the enlarged lake, is also located there.

Neighboring municipalities are clockwise (from the north): Salvan and Trient . To the south and west Finhaut borders the department of Haute-Savoie in the Region Auvergne Rhone-Alpes in France ; the French municipality of Vallorcine is a direct neighboring municipality.

population

Population development
year	1798	1850	1900	1950	2000	2010	2012	2014	2016
Residents	347	470	433	492	318	398	446	489	419

traffic

The cantonal road from Vernayaz via Finhaut towards Chamonix was completed in 1867. The community received a railway connection in 1906 with the opening of the meter-gauge railway line from Martigny via Le Châtelard and Vallorcine to Chamonix, the Swiss section of which was created by the Martigny-Châtelard Railway (MC). The community is accessed via three train stations by the so-called Mont-Blanc-Express , the operating company has been Transports de Martigny et Régions (TMR) since the Martigny-Châtelard-Bahn merged with other companies .

tourism

→ Main article : Parc d'Attractions du Châtelard

The main tourist attraction is closely related to the power plant construction. The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) were already using the MC to develop the construction sites and then built the transport lines that followed, including a funicular from Châtelard to the power plant's water tower, which opened in 1920. After the SBB considered demolishing the new Emosson dam shortly before completion, the SA of Transport Emosson-Barbarine was founded to protect the funicular from being demolished. Part of the transport line planned for demolition, a field railway with a 600 mm gauge, was saved and prepared for tourist operation as the Petit Train Panoramique d'Emosson . The railways were opened together with a rack railway at the Emosson dam in 1975.

Between 1989 and 1991 the now much too small rack railway from the foot of the dam to the lake was replaced by the modern mini-radio . The company changed its name to Trains Touristiques d'Émosson at the end of 1999 and then to Parc d'Attractions du Châtelard VS SA at the beginning of 2004 . The three tracks open up a hiking area, one of the most popular routes of which is the ascent to Lac du Vieux Emosson, near which archosaur tracks can be seen in summer.

Electricity industry

Maillart Aqueduct in Le Châtelard

The community has been shaped by the energy industry since the 1920s. It has been the location of SBB power plants since 1925: the Barberine dam and the Le Châtelard power plant , the first power plant stage, whose processed water is used again in other power plants located down the valley. The Lac du Vieux Emosson and the associated dam Vieux Emosson have been in the municipality since 1955. The systems were last expanded so far in 1975 with the commissioning of the Emosson dam, through which the southern part of the enlarged Lac d'Emosson also comes to lie in the municipality.

This last stage of expansion required a state treaty between Switzerland and France, through which an area was swapped so that the national border could be shifted so that the dam is completely within Swiss territory. In return, France also has a right to use the plant, which is operated by Electricité d'Emosson . Additional power plant centers were built for the use contractually agreed with France, including La Barberine on the border between Vallorcine and Le Châtelard-Frontière. Today, the valley floor near Finhaut is characterized in particular by the compensation basins below the Le Châtelard and La Barberine power plants .

Attractions

See also : List of cultural assets in Finhaut

In 2012, a team of researchers from the two natural history museums in Basel and Geneva discovered fossilized , 240-million-year- old reptiles traced by archosaurs , the ancestors of dinosaurs . These tracks were created before the Alps unfolded and there was a river plain at their current location. As a result of the latter process, the site called Vieux Emosson is now at an altitude of 2,400  m above sea level. M.

literature

• André Décaillet: Finhaut. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 2006 .

Web links

Commons : Finhaut  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Finhaut on the ETHorama platform
• Official website of the municipality of Finhaut
• Official website of the Parc d'Attractions du Châtelard VS

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Permanent and non-permanent resident population by year, canton, district, municipality, population type and gender (permanent resident population). In: bfs. admin.ch . Federal Statistical Office (FSO), August 31, 2019, accessed on December 22, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Media release from the Natural History Museum Basel of July 3, 2013 , PDF file ; Retrieved July 6, 2013