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Villages / Fribourg / Singine district / Lac de Schiffenen

Lac de Schiffenen

Site Canton of Fribourg · District: Singine · Uninhabited site (municipality of Düdingen)
Part of the municipality of Düdingen
Origin of the name Founding Historical timeline Must-see historical sites Remains Sources and references Nearby villages

Origin of the name Lac de Schiffenen

The lake, Schiffenensee in German, takes its name from Schiffenen, one of the many hamlets of Düdingen. A Schiffenen bridge crossed the Sarine there between Düdingen and Gurmels until the 1960s. The hamlet's name remains unexplained.[1][3]

Founding of Lac de Schiffenen

Until 1963 the Sarine flowed along the floor of a valley that separated Düdingen from Barberêche, linked by a single small bridge. The Fribourg electricity company (FEW, now Groupe E), which needed more power, planned a new hydroelectric plant there. An early study also considered diverting the Sarine into Lake Murten, an idea dropped because it would have had effects beyond the canton. The canton bought the land to be flooded, and an arch dam 47 m high and 417 m long was built. The lake, 12.7 km long and holding 65 million m³, impounds the Sarine between Barberêche, Düdingen, Fribourg, Granges-Paccot and Kleingurmels. It is one of the four large reservoirs on the Sarine, and its creation met with sometimes fierce opposition.[2][3][4][5]

History of Lac de Schiffenen

Neolithic. The Schiffenengraben rock shelter on the bank of the Sarine is occupied. It has yielded arrowheads, flint blades and flakes and pottery sherds from this period.[1]

1984-1989. Excavations in 1984 and 1989 uncover a hearth in the shelter and a workshop where axes of greenstone and flint were made.[1]

1293. The castles of Grand-Vivy and Petit-Vivy, which now overlook the lake, are first mentioned.[3]

1641. A chapel to the Virgin is built at the Bad Bonn baths on the bank of the Sarine.[1]

17th-19th centuries. The Bad Bonn baths, whose water was thought to heal, enjoy their heyday.[3]

1858-1862. The Grandfey bridge, about 4 km from Fribourg, is built as a steel truss. It is rebuilt in concrete in 1925-1927 for the electrification of the railway.[3]

1885. The Bonn bridge is built. Its keeper charges a toll of 20 centimes.[3]

1959. On 20 and 24 November the Fribourg Grand Council approves the dam project, after studies begun in the 1950s.[3][5]

1960. Preparatory work starts in March. Eight houses and farms are cleared and demolished.[3][5]

1962. On 16 June the first concrete is poured on the right bank. The Bonn bridge collapses, seriously injuring several people. On 4 December fireworks mark the topping-out of the dam.[3][5]

1963. At the end of September the water begins to rise behind the dam, commissioned that year (the filling is also dated to 1964). It swallows the Bad Bonn chapel and half of the Schiffenengraben shelter.[1][2][3][6]

1964. On 17 February the army blows up what remains of the submerged buildings.[3]

1983. A campsite with 260 pitches, a restaurant, a pool and minigolf opens near the dam.[3]

2007-2009. Because of PCB pollution, all fishing is banned from 28 August 2007 to 1 January 2009.[3]

2018. In summer an algal bloom strips the lake of oxygen below 5 m, and fish die in the Sarine downstream. Groupe E releases about 4 million m³ of surface water without running it through the turbines.[7]

Historic sites in Lac de Schiffenen

Schiffenen dam. An arch dam 417 m long and 47 m high, cast with 185'000 m³ of concrete. Its crest, at 532 m above sea level, carries the road that replaced the flooded ones. The power plant at its foot produces an average of 133 million kWh a year with two Kaplan turbines, enough for more than 26'000 households.[4][5][6]

Magdalena hermitage. Carved into the cliff near Räsch above the lake, it runs for 120 m and was home to hermits for centuries.[1][3]

Castles above the lake. Grand-Vivy and Petit-Vivy, whose watchtower is thought to predate 1293, stand above the left bank. The younger Ottisberg castle faces them on the Düdingen side. All are privately owned.[3]

Bridges. Upstream, the Grandfey railway viaduct spans the lake, and the A12 motorway crosses it near Granges-Paccot.[3][4]

Remains in Lac de Schiffenen

Bad Bonn baths. The hamlet of Bonn held a spa known throughout Switzerland: baths, a central wing with a hall, an inn and a chapel to the Virgin from 1641. Shortly before demolition it served as a set for the film « Annebäbi Jowäger », based on Jeremias Gotthelf. Only the chapel's altar, by the Reyff workshop, survived, and it was rebuilt in the church of Düdingen.[1][3][4]

Schiffenengraben shelter. This rock overhang once towered over the course of the Sarine. It is regarded as the oldest known inhabited site in the canton, and the lake now covers half of it.[1]

Submerged bridges and gravel pit. The Bonn bridge, the Schiffenen bridge and a gravel works near the dam disappeared underwater, as did the meadows where cows grazed between Düdingen and Pensier.[3][4]

Sources

  1. Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, « Düdingen » (Denis Ramseyer et Olivier Aebischer, version du 13.03.2008)
  2. Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, « Saane (Fluss) » (Anne-Marie Dubler, version du 21.06.2012)
  3. Verein O.S.K.A.R., « Schiffenensee : Das versunkene Saanetal » (livre et présentation, 2011)
  4. Baublatt, « Geflutete Idylle am Röstigraben » (18.09.2011)
  5. kran-info.ch, « Bau der Bogenstaumauer am Schiffenensee, 1960-1964 »
  6. Groupe E, « Barrage et centrale de Schiffenen »
  7. État de Fribourg (DIME), « Manque d'oxygène dans le lac de Schiffenen et dans la Sarine en aval du barrage de Schiffenen » (12.09.2018)

Other villages near Lac de Schiffenen

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