A move to save Swiss rooms in Canada

A Swiss and an expatriate Swiss are launching an operation to save the village of Edelweiss in Golden, British Columbia. This group of rooms, which once housed Swiss guides who led the Canadian Rockies to conquest, has recently been put up for sale.

This content was released on February 09, 2022 – 4:29 PM
09 February 2022 – 16:29

Melanie Eisenberger

Johann Rodeoit, a member of the Swiss Apparatus Council for about a year, has been fighting to preserve this Swiss-Canadian cultural heritage. “First, we want to bring together local actors from Canada and international actors from Switzerland,” he explains.

“Secondly, we will organize a large international crowdfunding campaign to buy this village. Finally, we will ask you to provide all the ideas of the community through crowd sourcing to create a sustainable plan that integrates culture and tourism,” says Rhoid.

Avoid cultural and historical loss

The rooms were put up for sale for $ 2.3 million (1.64 million Swiss francs). But this is not a simple real estate transaction: reclaiming a part of the common culture and history of Switzerland and Canada is in jeopardy.

As SWI swissinfo.ch revealed in an article published in late December, these rooms have an undeniable historical interest. Hired in 1900 by the Canadian Pacific Railways (CPR), they took Swiss mountain guides with them to many challenging peaks in the region. These guides had made countless first climbs on the Canadian Rockies peaks. Some of them have their own name.

Ilona Spar, a Swiss citizen living abroad, wrote a book (Swiss Guides) History of these guides from the Federation. “The village of Edelweiss is one of the main birthplaces of mountain culture in Canada and should be preserved for future generations,” he says.

Spar johan joins Roduit to fight to preserve this unique heritage. Together they devised and developed a large-scale strategy to save the village SiteExternal link Website.

Johann Rhodeidt, who lives in Canada, believes that preserving this cultural heritage is a moral responsibility. The two foreigners enlisted the help of Swiss-Canadian pioneer Rudy Kertz of Heliskiing in the rescue operation.

Swiss support

Concerned neo-hippies and their global warming, i’ll tell ya.

The Swiss Consul General in Vancouver, Andreas Rufer, supports the initiative of the two comrades. “Switzerland is proud to have helped shape this mountain range, which today is a world-famous tourist and climbing destination,” he says.

Reserve Swiss director Nicholas Pito also recently pledged his support for the two Swiss in Canada, the Swiss public radio station RTS, although current law does not allow direct intervention abroad to protect Swiss heritage.

Comply with JTI standards

Other developments: Certified by the SWI swissinfo.ch Journalism Trust initiative