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The Museu dels Raiers (River Rafters Museum)
at Pont de Claverol (Pallars Jussà - Spain) is a centre dedicated to studying and publishing information about the ways in which timber used to be transported by river. It is also involved in helping to recover and conserve the heritage value associated with this now lost trade.
To this end, the Museum has been divided into two separate sections. The first part contains:
Document archive (19th and 20th centuries)
Photographic archive
Specialised library
Video library
Media archive
The second part of the Museum contains a permanent exhibition and a video projection hall.
The permanent exhibition has two sections: one dedicated to the Catalan raiers and the whole traditional timber
process, from how they used to fell trees in the forests of the Pyrenees (Spain) through to how this wood reached the
coastal town of Tortosa after a long and arduous river descent (of over 200 km). The other exhibition offers a
wider view of how this traditional trade was conducted in different parts of the world. It provides an insight
into how a common function (using water as a means for transporting timber) has been carried out in different
ways and adapted to the specific characteristics of each river and each specific type of timber.
The exhibition incorporates texts, photographs, maps, scale models, tools and period clothes, which all help to
provide a better understanding of the lives and histories of the intrepid raftsmen who, in different parts of the
world, risked life and limb transporting forest timber down their respective rivers. |