Ru Cortot Ru Cortôt

It takes its name from the alpine pasture of the same name in the Val d’Ayas (Le Cortot), where the water intake structure collecting the waters descending from the Cime Bianche is still located today, at just over 2,000 meters above sea level.

After a route of about 25 km, overcoming ravines and elevation changes with daring solutions such as tunnels and wooden walkways, it descended to irrigate the then arid and dry lands of the Saint-Vincent hill, earning distinction among the irrigation canals of the Aosta Valley. These artificial canals became necessary for the regular irrigation of the region following the increase of vegetable gardens and forage crops in the meadows between the 14th and 15th centuries, and the consequent growth of cattle breeding.

The original route was open-air and wound halfway up the slope on the sunniest side of the Val d’Ayas, on the right orographic side of the Evançon, starting from an altitude that often remained snow-covered until well into June, thus ensuring a constant water supply.

The initiative for its construction was undertaken in 1393 by a group of farmers who obtained from Ibleto di Challant, Captain General of Piedmont, Governor of Turin and Nice, and builder of the Castle of Verrès, the concession to draw water from the Ventinaz and Nanaz streams and bring it to their lands, skirting the territories of Ayas and Brusson. In granting the water rights, the Lord, in addition to demanding payment in money, reserved the right to draw water one day a week to irrigate his own lands. The works were completed forty years later, and in 1433, under Count Francesco di Challant, regulations were drawn up governing the distribution of water and the execution of maintenance works. The canal managers collected taxes and organized the corvées, namely the days of unpaid labor provided by the beneficiaries to ensure the operation of the water system. The guardians of the Ru (called revàn) walked along the inspection path built beside the canal and had two small buildings available for resting. After the plague of 1630, the branch canal from the main one, which served the villages of Émarèse and Challand, fell into ruin due to lack of maintenance, thus becoming one of the many ru du pan perdu (“lost bread canals”) found here and there throughout the Aosta Valley.

Within the municipal territory of Ayas, over a length of about 9 km, the only still-functioning section preserving the original construction features from approximately 600 years ago has been maintained.

The Ru Cortot today

The open-air section of the canal has partly lost its original irrigation function, now performed by an underground pipeline installed upstream by the Ru Courtaud Land Improvement Consortium, established on April 29, 1962 and based in Saint-Vincent. The historic canal still in existence — with water flowing through it and the path running alongside it — therefore continues to perform the important environmental, landscape, and tourist-recreational function it had in the past.

If this section of the canal has been preserved, it is thanks to the determined action of the population of Ayas and the Municipal Administration who, in the early 1970s, strongly opposed the project to alter the old canal bed. In 1972, an agreement was finally reached between the Municipality of Ayas and the Land Improvement Consortium according to which 25% of the water captured, from the locality of Vardaz to the Gran Salto, would be diverted into the old canal, which was thus safeguarded.