The Old Zuiderzee Coast

I've long been fascinated by the geography and history of the Zuiderzee. It was an arm of the North Sea that had gradually evolved with the rising sea levels caused by the slow global warming and melting ice sheets from the last ice age twelve thousand years ago. Global warming is not a new thing invented by pseudo-scientists and popularised by Al Gore; it is one of the natural cycles of the earth’s climate, just as is global cooling. This map from 1818 shows the inland sea in the early nineteenth century.

At the end of the ice age, the area now known as the North Sea was dry land. About five thousand years ago, the rising sea levels from the melting and recession of the last of the ice sheets that had covered northern Europe, created the North Sea and the melting polar icecaps soon increased it to its current shape. The topography of the areas inland from the coast in what is now the northeastern portion of the Netherlands was a shallow depression. Drainage here was slow and the area filled with peat. The continued warming trend caused the North Sea levels to rise further. Gradually there were inundations over the low lands inland, and flooding during major storms accelerated the erosion of the coastal dunes. The two maps above show the approximate land form of what is today the Netherlands. The one on the left shows the coastline during the first century AD, the one on the right depicts its shape in the tenth century. 

Storms in 1282 and 1287 broke through the coastal barriers and the sea flooded inland. The name Zuiderzee entered general usage around that time. The size of the inland sea remained relatively stable from the fifteenth century onwards because of improvements in dikes. There were continuing disastrous floods, one in 1421 broke a seawall and incoming waters flooded seventy-two villages and killed about ten thousand people.

Dikes and seawalls continued to be built and upgraded and around the Zuiderzee many fishing villages grew. Some of these developed into fortified towns, like Naarden in the Google Earth image above. Many established important trade connections with ports in the Baltic Sea, England and in the Hanseatic League. Kampen in Overijssel grew in prominence, as did several villages and towns in Noord Holland, such as Naarden, Amsterdam, Edam, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen. The formation of the Zuiderzee had created many large protected ports that were connected to the sea and started the ascendancy of the Dutch to the status as the world super power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Dutch continued to extend and reinforce its system of seawalls and dykes and look at ways to reclaim land from the sea. In the seventeenth century there was a proposal to harness the waters, but its concept was too ambitious and impractical for the available technology of the time. In nineteenth century serious attention was given to controlling the waters and reclaiming land. Plans were proposed in 1848, 1849, 1866, 1873 and then Cornelius Lely began serious planning in 1886. 

This map was used to illustrate an article in the March 1893 edition of the Geographical Journal of the British Royal Geographical Society. The article had been written by Pieter Hendrik Schoute of Groningen, Friesland. He wrote of plans developed by a technical research team under the guidance of Cornelius Lely, who in 1891 had become the Minister of Transport and Water Management for the Netherlands.

The plan called for the closing of the Zuiderzee with a dyke running from the tip of Noord Holland to western Friesland, making the contained waters into a freshwater lake. Once this was stabilised, internal dykes would be built encircling some of the shallowest areas and then draining these to reclaim the land. It was a very ambitious project. 

The project sat on the shelf through the recession of the 1890s and continued to gather dust into the twentieth century. In 1913 Cornelius Lely regained his seat as Minister of Transport and Water Management. After severe flooding along the Zuiderzee coasts in 1916, the plans were resurrected and in 1918 the Zuiderzee Act was passed. Works began in 1920 and they progressed in stages. By 1924 the first dike, just 2.5 kilometres in length was completed. Between 1927 and 1932 the 23 kilometre Afsluitdijk was built between Noord Holland and Friesland, cutting off the newly formed IJsselmeer from the Noordzee. The polders were drained between 1930 and 1968.

The newly created lands of Wieringermeer were absorbed into the province of Noord Holland. Those of the Noordoostpolder and the Flevolands were united in 1986 to form the new province of Flevoland. A total of 1650 square kilometres of new land was created. About fifteen percent of this is now used as housing, nearly seventy percent is for agriculture use and the remainder is parks, nature preserves and infrastructure. The plans to dyke and drain the southwest portion of the old Zuiderzee to form a polder named Markerwaard was indefinitely postponed in the 1980s.

During the past two weeks I've slowly made my around the south and east shores of the old Zuiderzee, visiting medieval towns and cities along the way. Zonder Zorg is currently at the end of a long, blind canal in the new province of Flevoland that half a century ago was under four metres of water at the bottom of the old Zuiderzee.

 These maps show the scale of the industry of the Dutch people over the last millennium as they reclaimed land from the sea. The map on the left is the current landform of the Netherlands. The one on the right shows the areas of the country that are below sea level.  

Onward from Amsterdam

Unlike in France, where mooring is permitted except where prohibited, in the Netherlands no mooring is permitted except in designated areas. I had stopped on the free mooring in Dieman, five kilometres from central Amsterdam on 06 May and decided to test its 3x24 sign. These signs and 1x24 signs are common in the Netherlands and designate places where mooring is permitted and for how long. It is still off-season, so for a week and a half I was undisturbed in the moorage as I explored Amsterdam and wrote.

On Tuesday, 17 May I decided to continue eastward along the Weesper and then northward down Smal Weesp into the IJmeer to begin exploring the towns and villages of the old Zuiderzee coast. The lift bridge showed two red lights, meaning it was out of service, so I pedalled back to the previous bridge, which has a manned control booth from which both bridges are operated.

I was told that demolition of an old highway bridge had begun, closing the waterway until the first of June. That was fine, Dieman is a pleasant town and the moorage is a five-minute pedal to a huge shopping centre with two supermarkets. Another two weeks here would be fine and allow the weather to stabilise. The only problem was water. I had enough left for about another week. I pedalled the three kilometres to the demolition work to satisfy my curiosity.

A new pair of bridges had been built for a highway and the old bridges were being removed. A few days later, I called the bridge operator and told him I'd like to head west, back along the Weesper to get water at the marina at the junction with the Amstel, then return and continue to wait. I moored beside a water point on one of the marina's floats and looked for an office, but could see none, so I began filling the water tanks. An hour later, with full tanks and still nobody around, I walked to the exit gate to search further for an office to pay for the water. The gate required a code to get back in, so I returned to the barge, blew the horn a few times and waited. A quarter hour later, I assumed the water was free and left.

I headed back to Dieman and again moored between the town's two lift bridges. A few days later there was a knock on the hull and I answered the door to a man who told me he was posting signs that the moorage is being closed to set-up for a three-day music concert. I phoned the bridge operator and asked to be let through to find moorage further along. He said there was no official moorage, but I could stay in a small branch there until the waterway reopens.

Mid-morning on Sunday, 29 May, I heard the slap of wake on the hull and looked out to see two boats passing by. I went up top and saw the bridge opening for them. Seems the waterway opened two days ahead of schedule. I checked the fridge, freezer and pantry shelves and pedalled across to the Albert Hein to stock-up, then motored eastward past the destruction site and onward.

I paused for the day on a mooring in Weesp, when thunderstorms threatened and hunkered down through them. The storms weren't sufficient to keep the Havenmeister from his rounds, so I paid the €12 mooring fee. After breakfast on Monday I continued along the Smal Weesp and through the town's three lift bridges, paying the €3 bruggeld at the middle one. Weesp's €15 were my first fees of the season.

Just beyond town, I turned northward into the Vecht River, the river that flows to the IJmeer. The wind had been strong all day, and by this time was above forty kilometres per hour from the north. I decided to spend the night on a wilderness mooring in the lee of large trees to wait for the winds to abate. The forecast looked good.

Tuesday morning's weather was much improved, with light breezes and scattered clouds. I slipped and continued downriver to Muiden, enjoying the finely maintained tjalken, kilppers, Lemsteraaken and skutsjes moored along the banks. There were dozens of antique boats.

Past the swing bridge and through the lock, the antique boats continued all the way to the medieval castle on the old Zuiderzee coast.

Muiden Castle, or Muiderslot in Dutch, was originally built in the early 1280s by Count Floris V to impose tolls on river traffic. Floris was murdered in 1296 by Gerard van Velsen in retribution for raping his wife. The Bishop of Utrecht ordered the castle destroyed in 1298. Between 1370 and 1386, the castle was rebuilt in the same location and to the original plans by Albert I, Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland and Zeeland.

Near the mouth of the river were a few ships approaching the late stages of their existence. Antique wooden ships require huge maintenance and there comes a time when it's no longer worth it.

I continued the short distance to the IJmeer, then turned eastward to follow the buoyed channel through the shallows and onward to the narrows into the Gooimeer.

I decided to stop for the day in Huisen and followed the buoyed channel to the waterway thet snakes into the town. Its three metre clearance meant I didn't have to wait for it to be opened.

I followed the narrow winding waterway kilometre and a half and under three more bridges to a small basin surrounded by a shopping area with a huge supermarket.

I'm another 25.5 kilometres along and in a comfortable spot with a good online connection.