Around the Zuider Zee
The Zuider Zee, the South Sea, was a vast, shallow water inlet of the North Sea in the middle of the Netherlands. In 1932 this inland sea was enclosed by a dike of pharaonic dimensions, the Afsluitdijk, since then regulates the marine flow between both sides. Above, a highway runs through almost twenty miles splitting North Holland and Friesland provinces.
The fight against sea pressure in a country where a large part of its territory is under the sea level has sharpened the wit of its inhabitants to gain ground. Initially, the polders, reclaimed land, were achieved by a system of drainage of the marshes based on windmills pumping. That is the reason these are still a constant presence on the Dutch landscape.
In 1932 the construction of the great dam Afsluitdijk made Zuider Zee became a big lake, the IJsselmeer, which was gradually losing salt and turning into a huge reservoir of irrigation water. The isolation of the sea eased the development of new polders, the Weiringermeer north of the Holland province, the Noordoostpolder in Friesland and a whole new province, Flevoland, entirely won to the old Zuider Zee. In 1975 the construction of the new Houttribdijk dam linking the cities of Lelystad and Enkhuizen split the IJsselmeer creating a new lake, the Markermeer.
To the west, the Zuider Zee was enclosed by the province of Holland, which before was a vassal county of the Holy Roman Empire. In the fifteenth century would become dependent on the House of Burgundy and later of the Spanish Habsburgs, until become the Republic of the Seven United Provinces concurring for the global trade with Portugal, Spain and England. Amsterdam is the largest city, crossed by the canal that links the Markermeer with the North Sea. The Dutch surrounding fields are full of the tulips changing colours and produce groceries in greenhouses as would in any Southern Europe country.
Following northwards a small bay bathes three Dutch villages. Marken on a small island connected to mainland only by a road. This is the town which name these sections of the former Zuider Zee, the Markermeer. It is known for its colourful wooden houses and in other times was a fishing village recognizable by the island's lighthouse. Monnickendam shares with Marken municipal management. It has a small fishing port that has seen its heydays in the past but still has nice XVII century stores and a bell tower. With Edam, its old harbour, Volendam looks out to the same waters. Hoorn was one of the main centres of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company, where came the spice trade, here cloves, pepper and nutmeg was unloaded in a port located in the heart of the city. It has diminished considerably since the Zuider Zee was closed. From its past glory still stands the Hoofdtoren built in 1532 to guard the main port entrance. And from here sailed explorer Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, who in 1616 turned the southmost pass of the American continent, giving it the name of his own hometown: Kaap Hoorn, Cape Horn.
The province just ends up in the first and largest of the Frisian Islands, Texel, where there are seven towns and magnificent dunes where walk around looking up to the grey sky. In 1795 it was the scene of the first and probably only navy defeat against an armed cavalry; it happened when the sea froze around the island trapping the Dutch ships that French troops surrendered without firing a single shot.
Once crossed the long Afsluitdijk dike begins Frisian lands and almost immediately the port of Makkum. The golden siren of the blazon shows in her hands which were the main activities of the town, its shipyards and lime kilns. Further south the small village of Gaast, also next to IJsselmeer, shares the municipality. The 715 inhabitants of Sloten seem a crowd compared to just over two hundred in Gaast. Sloten is on an island located in the middle of a channel flanked by linden, the Sleattemer Gat, which also surround and crosses the town amid the region interconnected lakes tangle.
To return to Amsterdam by a different route the chance is the southward one to the third province that surrounds and embraces the Zuider Zee, Flevoland. Flevoland was almost completely stolen from the sea, or in other words is an extensive polder and the youngest province of the Netherlands created between 1940 and 1968, it occupies 54,000 hectares of which 75% are engaged in agriculture. The name was borrowed from the Roman toponymy, where there was the Lacus Flevo. The construction of the polder ended the isolation of Urk, a small town on an island not much bigger amid the Zuider Zee which was already mentioned in a tenth century donation certificate: cuiisdam insulae medietatem in Almere, que Urch vocatur (For some people half of the island of Almere, which is called Urch). In the port, a statue of a woman watching the sea reminds the sailors who never come back. The lighthouse tower began to shine in 1845. The fact of having been an island has preserved in Urk a different Dutch dialect.
The rest of the province is a large island in the Zuider Zee, where Lelystadt and Almere cities stand. A bridge over the A6 highway marks the entrance back to the Netherlands, northern Holland, where before coming back to Amsterdam, among Le Gooi forests, we find the massive castle of Muiden.
© J.L.Nicolas
