Point 10 of the Malcantone Mining Park Trail is the Astano Land Reclamation area.

The path leading up from the Astano smal lake to the locality of Nüs is also called the “Path of the Poles”. In fact, this path leads along the ridge of the Scerée hill, which was reclaimed by Polish soldiers who had taken refuge in Switzerland during the Second World War.

The sign shows a photo of Polish internees engaged in agricultural reclamation work and their living quarters, which were located west of the village of Astano.

The reclamation work extended the productive agricultural area, allowing the establishment of a much larger farm than the traditional ones in the region. Several areas reclaimed for agricultural use had previously been peat bogs and swamps where water stagnated. Today, a small area still remains that has retained these characteristics and has been included in the federal nature inventory as a nature conservation area.

Recently, cuppellar boulders have been found in places on the Scerée hill. It is probable that before the reclamation works, there must have been several sites where Celtic remains could be found all along this ridge, which are no longer to be found.

From a landscape point of view, this reclamation represents an atypical area that nevertheless has its own specificity that relates to the history of this last century.

Continuing in the direction of the Bolle mines, one can observe a row of chestnut trees that is the result of the reclamation work, and in the forest to the east of these we can observe on some rock outcrops cup marks that date back to pre-Roman times. An arrow with the inscription ‘massi cuppellari’ takes you to this site.