UBC October 2026 - Brig

While hubby is attending a business meeting, I’m sitting in a burgundy armchair at KaffeeKlatsch in Brig, a small Alpine town in the Swiss canton of Valais, not far from the Italian border and at the foot of the Simplon Pass. (Totally different part of Switzerland than the previous posts.) 

The carrot cake is quite respectable considering it's a specialty from my state ;-)  

But my mind keeps going back to something I noticed while walking through Brig’s old town earlier today.

High up on a wall is a small, very inconspicuous plaque. It marks the height reached by the Saltina during the catastrophic flood of 1993.

And when I say high up, I mean high up.

The inscription reads "Water and Debris Levels; Severe Weather Disaster of September 24, 1993"

If you don't already know what you're looking at, you could easily walk straight past it. There is no grand monument, no dramatic sign explaining what happened, and certainly no indication that this quiet little corner of the old town was once the scene of an extraordinary disaster.

The Saltina is a relatively small Alpine river that runs through Brig and neighboring Glis. Normally, it is hardly the sort of river that would make you nervous. But on September 24, 1993, after prolonged heavy rain, the Saltina became a raging torrent.

Stones, mud and water engulfed the first floors and cellars of buildings in the city center. Residents had to take refuge on upper floors. Debris piled up to a height of three meters, almost ten feet.

Two women died in a store, trapped by the floodwater, mud and stones. A friend's mother lived and worked in that very area, but fortunately managed to get out.

The aftermath was enormous. The army and civil defense helped with evacuations and cleanup, and around 20,000 truckloads of mud, sand and debris had to be removed from Brig.

And then there's that little plaque.

No grand memorial. Just a line on a wall, high above your head, quietly showing how far the water and debris reached.

I have to admit that I find this very Swiss.

If this had happened in the United States, I suspect there would be a gigantic memorial, a designated landmark, interpretive signs, a gift shop, a guided walking tour and probably “Authentic Saltina Flood Mineral Water” in a commemorative bottle for $9.99. 😂

Here, you get a modest plaque mounted rather high on a wall and are apparently expected to notice it.

Which is a shame, really. Because what happened here is worth remembering.

The terrible damage caused by the 1993 flood led to the construction of a new lift bridge a few years later. The Saltina Bridge can automatically respond to rising water levels and, in an emergency, be hydraulically raised by about 2.8 meters, allowing the floodwater and debris to pass underneath rather than creating another blockage.

So if you happen to casually walk across that rather unassuming bridge in Brig, you now know what happened here more than thirty years ago.

And perhaps that is the strangest thing about old towns: sometimes the most ordinary-looking wall, bridge or street is quietly sitting on top of a very extraordinary story.

Meanwhile, I’m back in my burgundy armchair, wondering what else I’ve walked past today without knowing the story behind it.

PS: What's that beautiful building you ask?

The Stockalper Palace in Brig is the largest and most impressive secular Baroque building in Switzerland. It features three massive granite towers with gilded onion domes, an arcaded courtyard in the Italian Renaissance style, and historic rooms that can be toured as part of guided tours.