Today the weather forcast was dry and not too cold. Tejo suggested to make a tour around the largest lake of the Netherlands, the IJssel lake (in Dutch: IJsselmeer). This used to be an inner sea with some small islands in it. One of these islands is named Schokland (I come to that later).

So the 4 of us (a friend from the south of the Netherlands, Peter from The Hague, me from Gouda and Tejo from Amsterdam) get together at Tejo's house for coffee and scones and fish soup.
At half past 10 we leave from Amsterdam for the first stretch: to the north and over the Afsluitdijk (free translation: the closing dike).

You see a map of the presentday Netherlands. In the north you see a small line, which is the Afsluitdijk (closing dike) that was completed in 1932. This dike is very important in connecting the two most northern provinces with the northwest and the capital of the Netherlands, Amsterdam.

Here you see a picture of the Afsluitdijk. On the left the new lake (IJsselmeer) and on the right the North Sea.



This waterworks, with locks at both ends of the dike to allow ships to pass from the IJsselmeer into the North Sea, was designed by Ingenieur Cornelis Lely. His statue is erected at the beginning of the dike on the western side. If you look closely at the photograph you see it.

Is it today there?or is it tomorrow?or yesterday.

After blazing over the dike we came into the province of Friesland. This province has very little highway, many meadows, inner dikes, sheep, cattle and lots of lakes and canals.

We made a trip next to the dikes that keep the water from the IJsselmeer from poring into the land. We followed all banks of the lake as it were.
In one of the Fries cities, Hindeloopen, we made a lunch stop on the banks of a harbor.

Tejo made a lovely photograph of a part of this small town/city Hindeloopen.

Once we were 'out of dikes' to follow, we entered the next new stretch of land.
In the middle of the former century the Dutch started putting dikes around large areas of the inner sea with the purpose of drying out these lands and using this new land for agricultural purposes.

I'll post a picture of the Netherlands from 1600. You'll see the inner sea and a few islands (I'll come to that later).

Once the dikes were constructed, engineers started pumping out the water. Then the mud was left to dry out. After many years the land was dry enough to start building on it.
Look at the map of the Netherlands now and the one you see here below. You can clearly see that two completely new stretches of land have emerged.

The map of the Netherlands around 1600:

Netherlands now:

As you can see in the new emerged inner lake you see another dike that connexts Enkhuizen to on southernmost new acquired land.
This was to become the third new stretch of land, but it was never finalized.

This first new land is named: Noordoostpolder. At the bottom of this new land a small island is incorporated, named Schokland.

In the map below you see the Netherlands around 1100 and you see some small islands in the inner sea. One of these is Schokland. The people on this small island (Schokland) were fishermen and gatherers of turf. Turf is the compressed earth with leaves and branches and other natural materials, that, once dried out, could be used as heating. The Dutch called this stuff schokken, hence the name of the island Schokland.

The people were very poor and once they had to be evacuated because the island was threatened by spring tide and very high water, storms and heavy rains. The sea was about to swallow the entire island. Fortunately this did not happen.

When the Noordoostpolder was dried out, this island was no longer an island anymore.

Here you see the island Schokland in the inner sea.

As we passed this new province we visited the island. Nowadays it's on the Unesco's world heritage areas list.
The small village of Middelbuurt has been restored, you can make long walks on what used to be the island. It even has a harbourmaster house, a lighthouse a misthorn house and a small harbour in which ships could shelter in bad weather.
As you walk on the island you can clearly see the differences in height of the lands around it. The island is still very distinctly present in the landscape.