Witweg: Big skies and reed lands

Today I went up North for a visit to an elderly family member who celebrated a landmark birthday. She lives in an area of Drenthe bordered by the provinces of Friesland and Overijssel. This is an area which I really love. It is unusual, an area with shallow lakes, peat bogs, reed lands, birds, old farmhouses, small but characteristic towns, very old ones. In some places the reeds even skirt the dikes of what once was the Zuiderzee.

Harvesting the reeds and burning the stubble

The picturesque towns behind these dikes have harbours and quays, moats, canals, sluices, narrow streets and gabled houses. Nowadays those harbours are mainly used by pleasure yachts. Many farms have thatched roofs, humble former workmen's cottages – sometimes farmhouses in miniature – are sheltered from the wind by bushes and trees. Coming from the West and heading towards the North-East I first drive through flat "polders". The first big polder I drive through is industrial and residential, although it also has a large nature reserve. Plus a "wood" of modern windmills, spoiling the view. In the next polder and the oldest one the reclaimed land from the former inner sea is mostly used for agriculture, the fields now ploughed and awaiting the new season. No dairy farms here, but farms offering potatoes, fruit and vegetables to passersby.

Big skies, even in the Netherlands

Where the old land meets the new land, the straight lines of the "polders" hit upon the winding dikes and the land behind it. Unfertile land, a patchwork of bogs, peat and pockets of sand, intersected with myriad canals and waterways. As peat was dug off, shallow lakes formed, some very large. Here reeds grow in abundance. At this time in winter the reeds are cut off – harvested - and lie along the soggy paths and on the land in neat sheaves or tied in bundles. The remaining stubble is burnt off. A pungent smell of smoke is in the air. It is a bright and partly sunny day. As the sun is still rather low in the sky, it does not seem to produce much warmth, but it sheds a golden glow especially over the reed lands and casts long and fascinating shadows. It is such a joy to meander along after having left the busy and urbanised West and the polders behind me. I always try to find a different route in this part of the country, and although I have been through this area innumerable times, I still hit upon unexpected roads and lanes, pockets of woodland, hamlets and ancient churches.

Boardwalks through the peat and bogs

This is also an area for big skies! In Canada I loved the big skies over the prairies, here I love the big skies over the reed lands and the farm lands. The farms seem rather isolated, but nothing is far away in Holland, it is just an illusion which I want to believe in. I passed through Giethoorn as well, sometimes called the Venice of the North. But one needs a lot of imagination. You would have to replace the rich palazzi by low thatched farmhouses, and the elegant Italian bridges by rather primitive wooden foot bridges. The only similarity is the water and the means of transport which is not by road but by water. And a gondola bears no resemblance to a flat bottomed wooden barge used to transport milk pails and bring cows from one field to another. Which does not mean that I do not like Giethoorn. I think it is magical, especially at this time of the year on a rather cold and partly overcast day when tourists flock to snow-clad mountains or sunny subtropical resorts. Then its true beauty can be savoured.