Photo Essay: Bells, Yodels, and Old-World Winter in New Glarus

A centuries-old Swiss New Year tradition drifts through New Glarus streets, where bells, costumes and winter light briefly turn the village timeless.

Photo Essay: Bells, Yodels, and Old-World Winter in New Glarus

As winter light fades across the village, the sound of bells and wordless song moves through New Glarus like an echo from another century. Silvesterchlausen is not loud in the modern sense, but it is impossible to miss. The heavy rhythm of bells, the slow rise and fall of chatter, and the intricate Groscht costumes turn ordinary streets into something briefly timeless. These photographs by Sue Moen capture that moment when tradition and place overlap, when sound becomes motion and history walks quietly through town, asking only to be noticed.

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