One of the highlights of this week was definitely meeting the group of women from Trontano; now in their 80s, they share a life long friendship, and for many years had the daily habit to meet in the evenings, singing songs together.

Our meeting developed into a lively musical encounter, as we were joined by the male group of singing hikers from Club Alpinisti di Villadossola.

All songs were in 2, sometimes 3-part harmonies – and everyone seemed to know their place in the music to the bone.

Immersed in music, we just sat there, taking in this beautiful everydaily ritual of singing as a way of being together. Not performing for anybody but themselves, it was an experience of how songs can constitute and affirm community. 

We spend our morning in conversation with Donatella Nebulosi, a living archive that guards the history and images from Miazzina with care and dedication! A former teacher from Milano, she is now resident of the village, an active member of Comuniterrae – and the only librarian in town.

She shows us her big collection of historical photos, portraying the rural life that was lived in the Val Grande area up until 50-60 years ago. A hard life, where people survived on a mix of terrace-farming and animal herds. We hear stories of men going away to France and Switzerland to work & earn money for the summer; we hear stories of women, incredibly strong, carrying anything from hay to rocks to furniture on their backs, up the mountain.

We hear about the clever milk traders from Miazzina, who found a way to transport milk in jugs, attached sub-surface to the marble transport boats going to Milan. In this way, the milk stayed fresh all the way – and the traders avoided to pay tax! Apparently, they made themselves a fortune…

Later, she took us to see the local ‘baita fuoco’ (the fire hut) – a kitchen turned into a small museum of cooking artefacts. The walls are fascinating in themselves – turned completely black with soot after years of cooking over open fire.

We meet with president of Comuniterrae, Ivana Ronchi, and local writer Pietro Pisano for a talk in the library.

Pietro is a hiker and a ‘native’, born in this area and with a deep emotional connection to the mountains. While also deep into the political and historical research of the area, he refers to the Val Grande as ‘la valle del dolor’ – the valley of sorrow. Like Donatella, he describes the extreme hardship of life on the mountain, where the people where exposed to adverse weather conditions and high mortality rates. Listening to his tales, the image of the woman carrying incredible burdens on her back, reappears. She seems to be almost a mythological character here. Strong, fierce, enduring, awe-inspiring.

During the WWII, the Val Grande area became a base for the partisan’s resistance fight against the fascist-nazist coalition.

This weekend we join a hiking excursion, organised annually by the hiking guides’ association Cooporativo Val Grande and the Dragone di Piaggia, commemorating the battles fought – and lost – in 1944.

There is a path going through the Val Grande to Switzerland, named after the famous partisan, Nino Chiovini. We are supposed to walk part of the trail, but due to heavy rain fall all day Saturday, the route is reduced. We walk from Scareno and arrive in the alpe village of Piaggia, soaked to the bone!

Making ourselves warm again with coffee, card games and a solid mountain stew for dinner, we rise the next morning to a cleared up sky, and another stretch of walking, finishing off in Aurano with a community dinner at the local Circolo.

What makes the biggest impression on us, are the stories of the young men – teenage boys, really – who for the most part made up the partisan army. Idealists with a need to take action, but without proper training, equipment and knowledge of the local territory, many of them died in accidents and in tragic ways. Again, this landscape turns out to hold stories of sorrow that is hard to bear.