Wooden Shoes and Windmills

Memories of the Holland (the Netherlands) from my pre-school days include windmills and wooden shoes.  Mother bought me my own little pair of carved wooden shoes, painted yellow and a red tulip emblazoned on the 'toe' part.  They were dreadfully uncomfortable and are long lost!  And I remember fields of red tulips, as far as you could see.  There were tall, large windmills scattered about the land.

These two pairs of ceramic "wooden shoes" were found in an antique shop in Washington State during a visit 2 years ago. The embroidered piece in my dining room shows a Dutch scene with windmill.  The blue and white designs are hundreds of years old, called "Delft," from Holland.

The windmill actually turns!  A ceramic replica of the real thing.

J. C. M. Kruisinga, the author of the next National Geographic Magazine article, A New Country Awaits Discovery: The Draining of the Zuider Zee Makes Room for the Excess Population of the Netherlands, September, 1933, insists that the country consists of much more than what I have mentioned above, the usual touristy enticements.  He proposes that this "Artificial Holland is far better known, since it includes the bulb fields, the windmill-drained dairy-producing districts, and the six largest towns - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Haarlem, and Groningen," (p. 293).

The "Zuider Zee" was an inland lake that would annually flood, fed by rivers, reshaping the land area, killing many people.  The inhabitants decided they would build a "dike," a dam, that cut off the Zuider Zee from the North Sea, and reclaim the land.  In the 1930's, this was an incredibly ambitious project.  It was an earthen dike that was built!  In 1932 the dike was completed. "It was a triumph won with difficulty to close the last openings in the wall; but Dutch engineering genius has learned how to conquer the sea.  Were it not apparently for frail ramparts of clay, nearly half the country would go back into the ocean," (photo caption, p. 298).  The author reports that the Dutch had been conceiving this plan for five or six centuries!

The dam was twenty miles long and 90 yards wide. It is indeed amazing that such a dam held, with few breaks, for many years, the fierce North Sea!

What were all the windmills used for?: "From Alkmaar to Zaandam extend the revolving sails which furnish power for sawing wood, grinding grain, and, most important, for pumping water from the fields," (photo caption, p. 308).

Why did the Dutch people wear wooden shoes?: much of the land was below sea level, and hence, very damp.  They removed their shoes before going into their houses.

What was the land reclaimed from the sea used for?: mostly farming, growing grain or food, with lots of cattle grazing fields.  It land was extremely fertile.

In the reclaimed land are many canals, a water system both for transport and for irrigation of the fields.  "Hardly had the water disappeared from Wieringermeer when the first turning of the soil began, and sea bottom became farmland.  Sometimes a farmer will unearth the bones of an old ship," (photo caption, p. 312).

When a farmer want to use a field for agriculture, usually he must first clear away any trees and/or rocks.  In the Netherlands on the land reclaimed from the sea, farmers had to clear away the seashells!

What is a "terp?"  It a very large hill.  "As an additional safeguard against the infinitesimal chance of the Big Dam's breaking, a terp, large enough to afford standing room to the entire population of the city of Amsterdam, has been dumped down in an inaccessible place near the center of the reclaimed land," (p. 320).

What did the reclaimed land not enjoy?:  Trees!  In one year after the dam was built, the few trees that were planted had died due to the high salt content of the land.

Why did the Dutch want to go to the great expense of draining this land?  Their population was outgrowing their land and they didn't want to invade their neighbors!  What does reclaiming land from the sea remind Americans about?: the great dam that broke due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in the New Orleans, Louisiana area and the land that had to be reclaimed.

Several more blue and white ceramic objects in my National Geographic Magazine cabinet.

This article was particularly interesting to me since I had a few but vivid memories of the area from a visit 60+ years ago!