Dead cities of the Zyder Zee
“Dead cities of the Zyder Zee” is a travel book written by Henry Harvard in 1875. He travelled around the Dutch Zuiderzee. The former rich fishing and merchant towns had lost their importance, buildings were crumbling, the inhabitants impoverished or had left for good. The towns around the Zuiderzee, now Ijsselmeer illustrate the ups and downs of history. But they also illustrate how the investments of a government can change the landscape, the living conditions of a population and the economic response.
Dark clouds over Volendam
Some evening sunlight breaks through dark black clouds when we arrive in the Marina in Volendam to check into the sailing boat we rented for the next week. It is not even the end of summer but the weather report for the coming week has announced dropping temperatures and a change of days of rain showers and heavy winds with calm days of sunshine. Typical weather for a sailing trip around the Ijsselmeer, where you never can be sure what the next day will bring.
The port of Enkhuizen
This next day we sail from Volendam to Enkhuizen. It is only a short trip but the weather report has announced stormy conditions in the afternoon and therefore it is better to be in a harbour before things get out of control. Enkhuizen has three harbours for yachts, and thanks to Corona the most pleasant one between the old town and the station is half empty. We had been here before and you had to climb over five other boats to get to shore. Now there are only two next to us. People are wary that they are not infected by their neighbours. But with the evening rain showers it is advisable to sit inside your boat anyway.
The city port of Enkhuizen
Before the 1930’s the Zuiderzee was a body of water which frightened everybody. The big, bay-like part of the north sea of up to 50 km wide and more than 100 km deep divided the north-western from the north-eastern Netherlands. Its 300 km of shoreline were ringed with little port towns contributing ships to the Dutch maritime trading and fishing fleet. Most important at its southern point the port of Amsterdam with originally only had access across the shallow Zuiderzee. At first towns like Kampen or Zwolle were members of the Hanseatic League, a trade confederation of towns along the shores of the North and Baltic seas. Ships got heavier later. After the discovery of maritime trade routes to America and East India the heavily loaded ships of the VOC, the Dutch East Indian trading Company, had to be tied to lighters to lift them up to enable them to cross the shallows.
Next to trading the towns around the inlet lived from fishing. The shallow waters of less than 5 m deep were popular spawning grounds and full of Anchovis, herring, salmon and flounders. In particular the hardy inhabitants of a couple of desolate Islands like Urk, Schokland or Marken, had no other means of making a living.
We tow a damaged yacht in the harbour of Medemblik
Due to its shallowness and sandbanks the Zuiderzee‘s water quickly can turn into a nightmare of high crosswaves in a gale. This not only caused the loss of numerous ships and lives of sailors and fishermen. The wild sea also regularly broke away the shores and dikes, flooded towns and turned agricultural land into salty swamps. The St. Lucas flood on December 14th, 1287 caused the death of up to 80.000 people. Another flood on November 18th, 1421, St. Elizabeth’ s day, caused the lives of 10.000. In winter, big parts of the Zuiderzee froze to solid ice with a treacherous surface, making both trade and fishing a dangerous adventure. The story of the Zuiderzee is retold in the excellent open air museum in Enkhuizen, where actors play the role of the former inhabitants of forlorn and endangered places in removed and reconstructed buildings. The museum also tells the story of Klaas Bording, a fisher who survived on an ice floe for 14 days.
Storm between Enkhuizen and Medemblik
When we leave Enkhuizen the next day early in the morning we get a sense how it has felt on this shallow sea a hundred years ago. As soon as we leave the protected waters we are a toy for wind and waves. Each time the boat splashes down into a valley between two crests we get a shower across the bow which reaches as far as the prow to soak the crew. The boat heavily bends away from the wind and with each breaker water washes over the lee gangway. Somebody has to vomit but does not make it to a spot where everything can hit the water. We will have to do a bit of clean-up later. Eventually we reach the protected harbour of Medemblik. The guy next to us has to be brought in by the rescue brigade. He has lost the screw of his engine. On the radio we hear of another boat which has capsized and sunk.
Old houses along the port of Medemblik
But the rain has stopped and so we can go for a walk in the quiet town. Thanks to Corona most of the tourists have stayed away. We end up in the Bonifaciuskerk. Usually most of the churches in the Netherlands are closed to visitors outside service time. This one is open. Because of Corona the annual market has been reduced to a bookfair which is held in the church. Medemblik was, like Enkhuizen and Hoorn, one of the important trading port towns on the Zuiderzee. One of the original stained glass windows of the church presents the look of the town in the 16th century. It has hardly changed.
The Bonifacius church in Medemblik and houses for the needy
One of the church officials has joined me and proudly explains the history and sights of the church. The church was built after the town had been ransacked and burnt down by a gang of thieves under their leader named “grote pier” in 1516. Only the tower remains of the old church, but since that time it has an inclination to get separated from the church. Frequent reconstruction was necessary. In 1866 the church was in such a bad state that they tore down the last 20m. The windows in this part were sold to get some money for the repairs. A part of one of the windows was recently discovered in a country house in Guernsey.
Church window showing the houses along the port in Medemblik in the 17th century
Like in many Dutch churches the floor is covered with gravestones over which the visitors carelessly stroll. Only the rich were buried under the floor of the church. Their decomposition resulted in a certain smell. The smell in turn eventually gave the rich the nickname “rijke stinker” (rich stinker). In the Bonifaciuskerk the most renowned is the beautifully ornamented gravestone of Lord George Murray. This Scottish nobleman, fifth son of the Duke of Athole, took part in the Jacobite rebellions of 1715, 1719 and 1745 and had eventually to flee to Holland. He died in Medemblik in 1760 and was buried in the choir of the church.
Decorations of the houses in Medemblik
After another flood in 1916 it was decided to realise already existing plans to dam the Zuiderzee. This would not only increase safety for those living close to the shores, but also increase the amount of available space for farming and housing by reclaiming land from the waters. In 1932 the dam across the entrance to the Zuiderzee was finished and the body of water changed into a sweet water lake called the Ijsselmeer.
The first consequence was a plague of flies. Due to the conversion from salt to sweet water a whole ecosystem died. Anchovis and the special Zuiderzee herring disappeared and with them the fishing industry depending on them. For example, the town of Hindelopen, which in 1915 had more than 100 fishing boats, presently has one left. Compensation payments by the government were below poverty level. The importance of the little towns along the shores for trading had already disappeared long before. But also Amsterdam lost its access to the open sea. However, a canal to link the port to the North sea had already been built before.
Water meter registering the tides when it was still the Zuiderzee
We arrive in Hindelopen the next day after what you could call a boring day of normal sailing. The former fishing town hides behind a high dike. A precariously tilted church tower overlooks dike and town. A lock with a wooden drawbridge gives access to the Hinterland. The town has many beautiful captains’ houses. The front is at the street, a garden separates the back of the house from the canals. Many have what is called a “Likhuis”. This is a little house where wife and children had to live while their master was at sea.
The port and one of the streets in Hindelopen
The likhuisjes for the family of the ship owners
Most of the little towns along the shores of the new inland lake tried their luck in tourism. Not so the former island of Urk, which now was part of the new polders around the new lake. The inhabitants formed a close, conservative religious community which was not very interested in influences from outside. Obstinately the fishermen of Urk carried on with their trade and continued to leave the Ijsselmeer by way of the new locks to the North sea to go fishing on the open ocean. Fishing on the North Sea is dangerous. A memorial to the fishermen who died while doing their jobs, lists hundreds of names with age, name of father and the boats they were sailing on back to the 18th century. In some years, half of a family with fathers and teenage sons as young as 11 lost their lives in the family boat. As recent as November 2019 two fishers on the boat UK165 lost their lives. Children lost their lives drowning in accidents, as can be seen on inscriptions at the cemetery next door.
The lighthouse of Urk and fisherhouses
In the 19th century this cemetery saw a macabre incident. In 1877 a doctor from the mainland managed to take away three skulls from the cemetery with a trick. Since the island was so remote, anthropologists of the university in Utrecht thought they might find the racial characteristics of the original Dutch there. They measured the heads of thousands of school children in Urk and of the skulls they were able to misappropriate in the cemetery. Eventually the skulls ended up in the university museum. Only in 2007 an initiative was formed to get the skulls back. Finally they found a common grave at the cemetery.
Shipyards in the port of Urk
When we first visited Urk years ago the town still was dominated by fishing boats. On the sandy ridge of the former island the inhabitants lived in their little single story houses topped by the two churches and the lighthouse. On Sundays the place basically shut down and there was barely a restaurant open for dinner. A couple of shipyards still occupy a big part of the harbour. But like anywhere else, the remaining port-space today is occupied by yachts of all sizes. Most of the harbour-side houses are now converted to restaurants which offer dinner with a view of the life on the water. Many of the old little fishermen’s cottages on the ridge are converted to vacation homes for tourists. Urk finally follows in the path of all the other little towns along the Ijsselmeer.
The cemetery where the skulls were finally buried
Memorial for the dead fishermen
Beach along the port entrance of Urk
Meanwhile the weather has turned and there had been no wind on the day when we went to Urk. On the other side of the dam where we have moored our boat is a new sandy beach and it is warm enough to go for a swim. The calm weather stays for the next day. There is no wind and therefore no chance of sailing. By engine we go to the lock which separates the Ijsselmeer from the Markermeer.
The lock separating the two parts of the Ijsselmeer
The original idea after the Zuiderzee had been dammed was to dam and dry a large part of the water surface to create farmland. Therefore a dam linking the new town of Lelystad with Enkhuizen was built. Lelystad was founded on a dried up new piece of land called Flevoland. However, the remaining water area west of the dam was never dried and stayed another open, shallow lake.
The port of the new nature reserve of the Marker Wadden
Meanwhile priorities have shifted. Tourism and environment become more important. The latest development is the creation of a swamp area for water fowl in the Markermeer. To gain money with it there are daily excursion boats, a few vacation houses and a yacht harbour. That is where we go.
Birds in the Marker Wadden
The place called Marker Wadden is about as remote as you can get in the Netherlands. There is no infrastructure except of a pavilion which caters to the day excursionists and closes early. There are hiking trails with bird observation huts. The birds like it here because of the big number of flies, I guess.
The port of Hoorn in the pouring rain
The next day storm and rain has caught up with us again. We sail to the biggest of the old Ijsselmeer port towns, Hoorn, another town which barely has changed in the last centuries. Impressive merchant homes line the port. The most famous inhabitant of Hoorn was Jan Pieterzon Coen. In the beginning of the 17th century he became the governor general of the Dutch East Indies. As such he was responsible for the foundation of the Dutch colony in Indonesia and of the town of Jakarta. After having been considered as a national hero his role now is increasingly controversial. To insure the Dutch trade monopoly and high prices he massacred the inhabitants of the Banda Islands, the spice islands where nutmeg, mace and cloves were growing. The dislocation of the inhabitants of the islands had consequences well into the post-colonial dutch recent past, when refugees from the Molucca Islands committed terrorist acts in the Netherlands. But the statue of J.P.Coen still stands upright on the main square in Hoorn. The original inscription is supplemented with a plate referring to his less pleasant sides. His most famous quote of 1618 was “Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us”.
The statue of Coen in Hoorn
The place which probably changed most after the dam was built, is the former island of Marken. Wooden houses on stilts clung precariously on a muddy ridge of land in the Zuiderzee. Frequently the island was hard hit by storm and flooding. 16 people died in the storm of 1916, when some houses were swept away completely and tried their suitability as boats. Today the island is connected to the main land by a dam. The former fishermen have completely changed to tourism. The visitors arrive in loads from Amsterdam by bus or Volendam by boat. But in the times of Corona also that has changed. You actually get a table to have a coffee and cake along the water of the little harbour.
The former Island of Marken
The description of “the dead cities of the Zuyderzee” inspired intrepid travellers as early as 1886. In that year Christopher G. Davies, an affluent Englishman, was looking for a relaxed vacation. Although he had a boat of his own, he rented the SS Atalanta including crew to cross the channel and have a look at the dead cities and the rest of the Netherlands with a couple of friends. This resulted in another travel book, “the cruise of the S.S.Atalanta on the rivers & canals of Holland & the north of Belgium”. The author also took pictures with his McKellen half-format plate camera. In the book he complains that the best shots were taken on the worst plates. However, the book still contains a fascinating collection of frames illustrating how not only the towns, but also the people around the Ijsselmeer looked like before it was turned into the Zuiderzee.
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