The flottage

We have been experiencing wonderful weather. Warm days up to 29deg with clear skies, lots of sun and cool nights.

View from Mailly le Chateau

After Mailly le Chateau, we proceeded via the quaint town of Lucy sur Yonne to a somewhat larger town called Clamecy. This was our furthest port before turning around in 2010.

Mailly le Chateau at the top of the cliff

The Yonne at Mailly le Chateau
Lucy was very quiet and had no shops. Just a lot of old and unusual water pumps used in the wells of 200 years ago. We stopped on a dike separating the canal from the River Yonne. Horses came down to drink here and there was also a very well preserved Lavoir (wash house used for clothes washing in the 18th and 19th centuries).Old well-water pump

A thirsty horse at Lucy

At Clamecy we took walking trips around areas of the town we had not seen last time. We also visited the museum which we missed last time. At a cost of three euros including audio guides, the museum was a bargain and far better than we expected. It contained a lot of the gifts made to President Mitterand, an excellent pre-history section with excellent finds from archeological excavations, some fine arts and a good museum concerning the flottage (floating of wood).

For hundreds of years, this region (which includes the famous Morvan Forest) supplied wood for Paris. The wood was the sole source of fuel for heating, cooking and industry. The wood was cut into fixed lengths, marked with the wood cutter's mark and then thrown into local streams and rivers which led to and included the Yonne River. The wood floated to the town of Clamecy. At that point, it was pulled from the river and piled up into piles according to the woodcutter mark. When you see the photo here (from around 1900) you realise what a huge and daunting enterprise it must have been.

So much wood at Clamecy

The wood was then made into rafts about 78metres x 1.4metres. These rafts were floated down the Yonne, usually steered by children of 10 years. When they reached Joigny (around 75kms away) the adults took over and then navigated a further 100km to the Seine and onwards about 70km to Paris. The children walked back to Clamecy and the adults from Paris to Clamecy. Wow! One million logs were floated to Paris each year and the industry finally stopped in 1923 when Northern canals opened, bringing coal by barge from Belgium. Also, boats continued to bring timber from this region via the Nivernais canal (which was built beginning 1783). Increasingly, that timber was used for construction.

So, there is a fascinating history of the timber "flottage" in this region. The flotteurs were very poor, worked very hard but were essential to the survival of Paris. They are perhaps honoured more today than they were over 100 years ago.

Flotteur memorial on Clamecy bridge

We stocked up our food supplies in Clamecy. We had thought that we would have to turn around at that spot but....perhaps not. The official bridge height is 2.95metres and we are 3.22metres in the centre of our roof and 3.16metres at the edges. Many of the bridges are arched. That is why we turned around there in 2010. Read what happened in the next blog!

Dave and Penny

Fine Clamecy porcelain