In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye opens with one word: tradition. He says it holds everything together. Without it, life would be as shaky as a fiddler on a roof. I think about that a lot with regard to the Saanenland.

One Big Family Tree
In this valley, the family tree is not something you need to look up online – it’s carved in stone. Look around, and you will notice that the same four or five surnames keep appearing. A company name here, a name on a post box there, a name mentioned in passing by a neighbour. The same names, repeatedly, until you stop being surprised and start understanding. This is simply how it is in a place where families laid down roots and stayed put.

Iceland, with its tiny population and well-documented family trees, has even inspired an app that lets would-be couples check how closely they are related before things get serious. Users bump their phones, and the database flags any awkward overlap. The Saanenland is not Iceland, but the principle is similar. In a small community where the same surnames turn up on gravestones and shopfronts, you rarely have to look far to find the branches that connect one household to another.

It makes sense that it is like this here. Before the advent of mass transportation, this was a rural and remote valley, the kind where people stayed because leaving was hard. Winters were long, roads were few, and the mountains that make this place so beautiful also made it hard to access. Communities were more self-contained. Families built what they needed, married locally and put their names on everything they made. The traces of that history are still everywhere in the valley.

Etched in Glass
At its heart sits the St. Niklaus Kapelle, built in 1402. Step inside and take a close look at the stainedglass windows. There you will see the family names of the Saanenland etched into the glass. Bach. Matti. Hauswirth. Reichenbach. Romang. They are not just decorative details. Each name represents a family that helped shape this place.

We were married in this chapel, yet it wasn't until about three years ago that I really saw these windows. It was my editor who pointed them out; left to my own devices, I might never have looked closely enough. There is something unexpectedly moving about seeing history recorded in the glass. A permanent acknowledgement that these families helped shape the place we know today.
The Saanenland is not a place that stands still. It moves forward; it adapts. And it builds. Quite a lot, in fact. The same families who appear in the glass of a 15th century chapel also appear on modern firms, on new buildings, on the programmes of contemporary festivals. They form a thread through the centuries from then to now.

Our names will not appear in the stained glass of the Kapelle. But we were married there, and that is our small mark in a very long story. Tevye was right about tradition. In the Saanenland, it is holding everything together just fine.

ANNA CHARLES