We were driving into the main street of the tiny, beyond-cute village of Châtillon-en-Diois in the mountains of La Drôme in southern France when something odd happened.
Woolly power!
A flash mob of sheep surged towards us and swallowed our car. In no time we were ewe-, ram-, and lamb-locked, marooned in an ocean of woolliness.
It was part of an annual festival and it was defiant. Suddenly all we could see and hear was fur and a syncopated tinkling of silver bells. We’re here. We’re woolly. What’s it to you?
Two collies worked the edges, clearly running the show and waving ragged tails while heading them away from trouble. Two shepherds – a boy and (maybe) his mother – were whisking switches, whooping and whistling in high spirits. In September they’ll do it again, downhill. Impossible not to be fascinated by the bond between dogs and shepherds and sheep!
This flock wore Shaun-the-Sheep glares as they plodded along in lockstep, collectively pissed off.
Sheep on the move are always Nervous Nellies. Sheep think – if that's the verb – with communal intelligence, like bees. (You may recall this from the sheep-going-over-the-cliff tragedy in Far from the Madding Crowd.)
Dipped and shorn
They’d just been dipped and shorn. Now they were being dragged through cars and up a mountain. Lambs, ewes, and rams were pondering the eternal question of life: “Are we there yet?”
Known as La Transhumance, it goes back to the dawn of domesticated herding around 8,000 BC, when Neolithic man realized pastoralism is easier than hunting, dairy foods are less problematic, and jumpers knitted by mammy are cosier than skins. It was big in Ireland too.
We’d just been on an amble around the foothills of the Cirque d’Archiane, the massive limestone cliffs that form part of the “Fortress,” as the Dromôis-Vercors range is known, because of its reputation as a Resistance hideout in the second World War. Its valleys tempt “neo-rurals” and retirees. By contrast with the Maritime Alps, they’re unspoiled – a secret that will get out some day.
Sheep migration
The biannual sheep migration is a highlight for the people of Die, home of sparkling Clairette de Die wines. Die has a lively market, vineyards, windy streets, and a gently swelling expat community.
Chatillon is its satellite, and rejoices in an ancient inn with a bistro called Bistro Dauphiné. Come June, the village draws rock climbers, campers, cyclists – and a local called Kiki insists on directing you to the best Clairettes de Die, bread, cheeses, “gateaux ZouZou”. Just succumb – it’s futile to resist.
We’re staying in the ancient weaver village of Charens-le-Baaa (renamed from “Bas” since the advent of a sheep barn). Below, scattered poppy fields lend a whiff of Med. It’s very hot. Abandoned stone cottages are getting restored and our friends built a pool. The old school is inhabited. The mountains are home to marmots, chamois, ibex or mountain goats, and grouse.
Grey wolves
Less welcome are grey wolves that have been sneaking across the Italian border since 1993. Local newspapers resound with shepherds’ complaints. The current French wolf count is said to be up to 100 and growing. They are protected, but official culls are permitted to protect sheep. One has just been ordered after the slaying of an enormous donkey in a village near Mercantour Preserve.
France's woman mystery writer Fred Vargas set her best-selling crime novel here, Seeking Whom He May Devour, about one of her scariest creations, the Beast of Mercantour. Fred's hero Adamsberg is a dreamy, love-addled French cop. His beloved Camille is a plumber-cum-composer whose bedtime reading is The A to Z of Tools. A shepherd who's had his sheep savaged is a changed man. He can never be the same again. "It warps your mind," an old shepherd explains to Camille.
Even if you have only a passing interest in sheep, wolves and shepherds, you owe it to yourself to dip into Fred’s account of a shepherd’s life and the fierce loneliness that characterises it.
Further south in La Brigue near the Italian border, “neo-rurals” and newcomers in the paysan movement have used their transhumance to block traffic and protest a new highway. A handful of shepherds claim they face separation from summer pastures by a mooted autoroute and villas.
This is where Mussolini placed a marvel of engineering, a trans-mountain railway of distinction. Instead, “Big Ag” and local planners want to rip it up and link Monaco with Turin via the autoroute. The “neo-rurals” survive on sales of sheep cheese – a pungent delicacy that comes at a pungent price. Wolves or highway both represent threats to their way of life. Blocking traffic is their retort.
A rare and ugly breed of sheep known as the Brigasque is their special pride and flashpoint. These strong, mountainy neo-rurals are fighting to the bitter end for Brigasques and smelly cheeses.
Hanging on to the Brigasque is a special crusade on its own and calls for heroic shepherds to drag them up and down in a protest transhumance. “Woolly Power” as the weapon of uber-protest? “We’re here, we’re woolly! Get used to it!”