Shepherd in the Aletsch (Swiss Stories 2014, by Adrian Streun) - Swiss Press Award
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Adrian Streun
At the end of each August, a group of young men, commissioned by the Naters community in the canton of Valais, set out into the heart of the Swiss Alps to bring back the sheep from the Inner Aletschji region. Photographer Adrian Streun documents the final phase of the herders' work in his reportage. At the beginning of summer, 850 sheep were driven by their owners to the mighty peninsula in the middle of the Valais glacier sea. The herders' task is to find the 850 sheep and return them to their owners on Belalp. It is hard and dangerous work. The Inner Aletschji is a massive mountain ridge below the Geisshorn and Fusshörner peaks, bordered on two sides by the Oberaletsch Glacier and the Great Aletsch Glacier – the largest glacier in the Alps. It is like a giant natural pen, so remote that there is only one way in and out – through the breathtaking Tälli Gorge. The spectacular finale is the sheep shearing, in which the owners separate their sheep from the large herd in a kind of "Alpine rodeo." For generations, the sheep farmers of Naters have driven their animals into the Aletschji interior, where the sheep spend the alpine summer without a shepherd. The ten-person group of shepherds consists of two treasurers as leaders and their helpers, the "Sannern" – a close-knit group of friends from Naters who continue what their fathers and grandfathers have done. The reportage aims to showcase the beauty of Switzerland and its vibrant traditions without resorting to postcard-perfect subjects or cheap Alpine romanticism. Rather, the focus is on the atmosphere in the mountains and the shepherds.
