From Saanen in the Canton of Berne to Nipissing - A Little Known Episode of Swiss Emigration to Canada

Authors

Emile-Henri Bovay

Keywords

Swiss American Historical Society, Swiss emigration, Canada

Abstract

Some two hundred miles north of Toronto on the road to Burk's Falls, just outside Magnetawan, is an old farm field, shoulder-high in hay. Tucked back in a corner of the field, barely visible from the road, is an old post archway. It is closed with pagewire fencing. Inside the fence, wild fern has all but totally obscured a pioneer graveyard, a memorial to Swiss settlers who helped to open up the country south of Lake Nipissing. Most of the inscriptions on the gravestones are still readable. he names they bear leave no doubt as to the Bernese origin of those buried here: Raaflaub, Matti, Hauswirth, Haldi and Reinhard. Pioneers' Cemetry with its Western style archway is the last place of rest of these immigrants who came mostly from the Saanen area. How did it happen?

Recommended Citation

Bovay, Emile-Henri (1974) "From Saanen in the Canton of Berne to Nipissing - A Little Known Episode of Swiss Emigration to Canada," Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol10/iss1/6