Castérino valley

Long ago, Italian lumberjacks worked in the spruce and larch forests which border the entire valley all the way to St-Dalmas-de-Tende. The trunk they cut down were then taken to the bed of the mountain stream where they constituted a temporary dam behind which the water level rose. The lumberjacks then broke the dam down and the trunks were carried away by the water. The floating operating came to an end at Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende. The trunks were then loaded onto 4 wheeled carts pulled by mules and taken to the St Dalmas sawmill or the two sawmills at Tende. When the railway arrived at the start of the 20th century, they were sent to Piedmont, to the detriment of the local sawmills.