Musée départemental de la Montagne

The Musée Départemental de la Montagne is located in Château-Lambert, a village in the Haute-Saône department at an altitude of 700 metres with a population of 14. The museum is one of the three Musées Départementaux Demard, created on the initiative of Albert Demard, his wife Félicie and his son Jean-Christophe.

At the foot of the Servance balloon, on a ridge overlooking the Moselle valley and the upper Ognon valley, Château-Lambert is a picturesque little village where time seems to have stood still. The village owes its name to a castle, the "Chastel Humbert", or rather an eagle's nest that stood on the heights where the statue of Notre-Dame des Neiges now stands. Nothing remains of the castle, which was destroyed in 1643 during the Ten Years' War, a Franc-Comtois episode in the Thirty Years' War.
The village of Château-Lambert is a frontier in more ways than one: it is located on the border between the departments of Vosges and Haute-Saône, on the border between Franche-Comté and the Grand Est region, and on the boundary between the North Sea and the Mediterranean basin.

It's in this bucolic setting that Albert Demard wanted to set up the museum to explore themes associated with the mountain environment, the difficult life of the peasant miners, their farming activities and the work they do in the mines. He also talks about the forestry and woodworking trades, which are very present in this part of Haute-Saône.

The tour begins in the farmhouse, a modest, rudimentary dwelling typical of mountain farms, in which the living quarters of the peasant-miner are recreated as they were before the First World War. The entrance to the house is through the kitchen, followed by the "stove", the most important room that could be used as a dining room and bedroom. The animals are not forgotten, and the cowshed bears witness to the poverty of the peasant-miner, who often only owned a cow and a few goats. Farming activities are evoked in the attic, where various tools used to grow cereals, particularly rye and buckwheat, are on display.

The reconstructed classroom in one of the museum's rooms is reminiscent of a village school at the end of the 19th century. Various instructions for pupils are posted on the wall. If they weren't obeyed, the teacher had a range of punishments at his disposal: spankings, dunce caps, knocks on the fingers, etc.

Outside, there is a pathway where visitors can discover not only the trades of the forest, but also the beauty of the landscape. The peace offered by nature and the harmony of the site should not make us forget the harshness of the work of the woodcutters, clog makers and charcoal burners.

For a long time, the village had two main activities: mining and farming. There is a section devoted to this mining past. From 1578 to 1632, under Philip II, copper ore was mined by miners from Auxelles, Giromagny, Germany and the Tyrol. Hundreds of people dug into the rock with hammers and pointers to extract the copper. In 1616, Château-Lambert had an estimated population of 700. The miners lived on site in modest houses, often made of wood. After a period of decline, mining resumed from 1896 to 1920, and then again from 1936 to 1944 to extract molybdenum, a lead-containing ore used to harden steel. This metal was then mined during the Second World War to support the German war effort. Mining came to an end in 1944.

The hamlet of Château-Lambert can be the starting point for a number of walks, including the "Sentier des écoliers" ("Schoolchildren's Trail"), which allows you to follow in the footsteps of schoolchildren from days gone by and discover views over the valley.