Conférence : L’épopée de la mâture dans les Pyrénées béarnaises, Jean Touyarou, Ingénieur Forestier

The Pyrenees were famous for the masting of the Royal Navy under Louis XIV. The preferred species was fir, but beech, holly, boxwood and borage were also harvested: but for what purpose? How were these trees chosen by foresters and shipwrights? And how were they extracted from the steep forests of the Béarn mountains to the port of Bayonne, before being shipped to the arsenals of Rochefort or Brest? And how did they become keels, decks, masts, scuttles, pulleys, oars, .... ? We'll look at how they were harvested in the 3 Béarn valleys of Aspe, Ossau and Barétous, how they were refloated to Bayonne, and how wooden ships were made in the 17th and 18th centuries.