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Noord Ferwerderadiel
In 2006 this area was the setting for an event that attracted worldwide attention. In the night from October 31 to November 1, in the outer dike area, more than 200 horses were trapped by the water due to storms and floods. For a few days, the herd stood packed together on a higher piece of land. Images of it and of the rescue campaign went around the world and are engraved in the memory of many. More information can be found on Micky Nijboer’s website, who devised the rescue and performed it with five other amazons. There (and also on YouTube) are also the impressive images of the rescue action. Five years after the drama (more than 20 horses were killed), a work of art was unveiled on the dike at Marrum in memory of Machiel Braaksma.
The north of the municipality of Ferwerderadiel is a very interesting area. On a salt marsh that at the time was more or less the coastline, the mound villages of Blija, Ferwert, Marrum, and Hallum were founded a few centuries BC. The main road along these villages follows the route of the dike that was constructed in the eleventh century to protect the land around the villages against the sea. On the outside of the dike, new salt marshland was created by silting up over the centuries. Halfway through the eighteenth century that salt marsh was flooded. The current seawall is a lot higher, but it is still in the same place as at the time.
In the eighteenth century, the four villages each had their own sailing connection with the more southern Dokkumer Ee. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the area was also opened up by a railway line. This was built and operated by the North Frisian Local Railway Company (NFLS) and ran from Leeuwarden, via Dokkum to Anjum. The line has long been discontinued and the trail has largely disappeared, but the so-called ’Dockumer Lokaeltsje’ still makes the heart beat faster of many Frisians. The route is still recognizable here and there in the landscape and most stations are still there but are often difficult to recognize as such. The latter does not apply to the Marrum-Westernijkerk station, which has been completely restored to its original state.
Back to the dike. On it, near Marrum, is a monumental work of art by Ids Willemsma. It was created on the occasion of the completion of bringing the Frisian Wadden dikes to the so-called "Delta height" between 1963 and 1993. The impressive dike offers a wonderful view of the area North of it, the Noarderleech. A start had already been made on cultivating this silted up area when it was decided to give the sea ’controlled’ a natural influence again. Since the outer summer dikes (low dikes) were punctured, a unique nature reserve has developed on the border of salt and sweet that is freely accessible from 1 July to 15 March and where two nature walks have been plotted.
In addition to nature, the area is also interesting because of the still obvious traces of the process of land reclamation and cultivation: summer dikes, locks, beautiful round drinking water areas surrounded by ring dikes and the remains of a railway track that used to serve for transporting wood (and labor) for the old land reclamation works. There are also two bunkers from the Second World War in the area.
Noord Ferwerderadiel: a surprisingly versatile area, witness to the Dutch "Fight against the water" and a perfect combination of tranquility, nature, culture and landscape beauty.
Colofon
FrieslandWonderland
