Canal d'Entreroches

The Canal d’Entreroches was planned in the 17th century as a link between the Rhine and Lake Geneva, and would have enabled inland waterway communication between the North Sea and the Mediterranean. It linked the river Thielle at Yverdon-les-Bains with the Venoge at Cossonay, a distance of 25 kilometres. It was completed in 1648, and remained in operation until 1829. Traces of some five kilometres of it still remain.

The Thirty Years War led to a number of projects to link the Protestant Netherlands to the Mediterranean without the dangerous sea journey round Catholic Spain. In 1635, Elie Gouriet, the Breton quartermaster-general of the French forces in the United Provinces, delivered a proposal to the government of Bern to join the lakes of Neuchâtel and Geneva by a canal crossing the Mormont, which formed the watershed between the two lakes, through the Gorge at Entreroches, near Éclépens. The authorities agreed to the plan on the condition that the canal would run entirely through Bernese territory, making stipulations about the width of the wayleave and the exploitation of adjacent watercourses and forests.

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