One day a 12 months the Segre river goes again in time and sees wood boats filled with custom seem within the watercourse. Also the load of descendants of raiers, these accountable for transporting the trunks of the timber down the river, from the Pyrenees in the direction of the inside and the coast. A dangerous commerce, in disuse since 1933, by which its staff confronted the stream and inclement climate to promote the wooden. Once the river route was accomplished, the journey continued on foot to return to their properties with the work completed.
This work was the day-to-day of many inhabitants of Coll de Nargó (Lleida), the fluvial transport middle of Catalonia, acknowledged as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco. Among them was the great-grandfather of Àlex Ferrer, the president of the Coll de Nargó Raiers Association. “Where there was a river, there was wooden. And if the circumstances have been proper, there have been staff.” A activity by which the logs have been despatched to the Tortosa shipyards to construct boats. Although in addition they saved the wooden in Balaguer or Lleida.
“When they went out to Balaguer that they had about 5 days and to Tortosa ten, once they went from Segre to l’Ebre. The raier used to come back strolling, it took about two weeks. months with out showing within the city. In the tip they already knew the way in which”, explains Àlex about some boats that trusted the stream of the river.
While the boats within the United States or China have been “stratospherically” giant, in Nargó they manually tied the pine wooden and constructed the rai with ten beams of about six meters. In this manner, they got here to construct boats with 20 or 30 beams.
“Before, to hold a rai, you solely wanted two raiers. They have two oars, one in entrance and one behind. It solely turns from proper to left and it’s the river water that propels it. The water goes down and also you go backward and forward to dodge the rocks”, provides Àlex a few job that seems for the primary time in Nargó’s writings within the fifteenth century. “The extra they went down meant there was extra wooden.”
A bodily and in addition psychological labor, by which the chilly and the river water itself performed methods. “Imagine in the midst of winter or the thaw season touching the water and getting moist, however they did not do it an excessive amount of. Feet at most. Cold, sure, I suppose they’d spend loads, however they already had all types of tales to heat up contained in the boat, the identical to eat”.
They even had locations throughout the journey to relaxation. “There have been like inns alongside the way in which the place they waited for the raiers and carriers.” However, the commerce turned out of date when the lumber hauling truck and swamp tasks got here alongside. “The final descent was in 1933, it now not made sense. The river course of was very lengthy, the wooden received moist and needed to be dried. A course of involving many individuals, by which the truck seems, you narrow the wooden, you place it within the car and it is over”.
It was the employees themselves and household descendants who averted dropping a part of the historical past of the Catalan city. Among them, Àlex’s great-grandfather. “In 1989 they received collectively and determined to recollect the rai and assemble it with the identical instruments they used to make.” 30 years later, the oral transmission has handed to the brand new generations and every year they commemorate the custom.
“This 12 months is particular as a result of in December 2022 the raiers have been acknowledged as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco.” For this purpose, the organizers themselves have determined to deliver the occasion ahead to this Saturday. “Normally we did it on August 15, however we have now modified it to spring because of the drought. If not, it’s doable that one 12 months we won’t go down.”
In this manner, the present raiers costume for the event and use typical Catalan espadrilles. “They have been made from esparto grass, a less expensive fiber. What occurs is that it spoils when it will get moist, so previously they used to vary it loads.”
Now, the contributors proceed assembling the boats and later they maintain them or attempt to give them some use. “A century in the past we might promote it. Now they now not need this damp wooden and we benefit from the beams that we will use.”
An atypical job that for the great-grandfather of the president of the Association of Raiers de Coll de Nargó was like that of a fisherman in L’Escala or Sitges. “He favored to eat grapes whereas he carried the rai with one hand. Others stated that they might do the Segre and Ebre with their eyes closed from the occasions that they had lowered.”
All sorts of anecdotes between the stream of the river that its descendants attempt to bear in mind to point out the significance of labor in a city traditionally linked to water, by way of which the Segre, Perlas and Sallent rivers stream and really shut is the Oliana reservoir.
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