On the border of Friesland and Drenthe lies the swampy Fochteloërveen, a raised moor area that escaped the hands of paupers from the neighboring colony of Veenhuizen. Now the crane nests there.
1. THE PEAT AREA – Colonies of Benevolence
Drenthe is famous for the heath, dolmens and covered wagons. And for space. Here, in the middle of the Fochteloërveen nature reserve, the only thing we see around is jet-black water, dotted with pollen with golden pipe straws. Here and there is a silver birch along the walkway, and bushes of red myrtle. Veenhuizen, where our walk started, is an hour’s walk away. In 1823, two hundred years ago, the village was built on the marshy peat plain that this part of Drenthe was then. Why here?, we wondered.
We got the answer in the museum of Veenhuizen: the village was built as one of the seven Colonies of Benevolence. After the departure of Napoleon, the Netherlands was left in poverty. Riots threatened. General Johannes van den Bosch, concerned about the fate of the paupers, came to King Willem I with a plan. It was to provide aid to the poorest: orphans, beggars, vagrants. They were given shelter and an education with the aim of getting their lives back on track. The cemetery contains 16,000 ‘settlers’, four layers thick.
Festivities: 200 years of Veenhuizen
Because Veenhuizen exists 200 years, activities are organized. This is how the theater spectacle is at the beginning of June
to see the Pauper Paradise; you can join Erfgoed Diners or participate in the Landlopersdag. An overview can be found on veenhuizen200.nl
2. THE HERITAGE – Between paupers and criminals
Veenhuizen has been Unesco heritage since July 2021. You walk through streets that are neatly at right angles to each other. Details on the houses reveal a strict hierarchy among the former residents. Along the Hospitaallaan, next to Hotel Bitter en Zoet, you will find the staff residences Toewijding and Sense of Duty. They are large houses, the first inhabited by the physician, the second by the apothecary.
Opposite, the less educated lived in houses without a bay window or upper storey, without shutters or red beech in the garden, a sign of position. Almost all facades have devotional texts. ‘Trust in God’, ‘Pray and Work’, ‘Care and Diligence’.
The most striking structure is the former prison, now the National Prison Museum, built in a square shape around a large courtyard. For the first 36 years, Veenhuizen functioned as a shelter for the poor, but from 1859 the Ministry of Justice set it up as a penal colony. Paupers and criminals were imprisoned and put to work in the peat, which had to be reclaimed for peat or the cultivation of potatoes.
gevangenismuseum.nl
3. THE REclaimed LAND – Land of dikes, ditches and fields
We find that peat on the other side of the wide drainage channel that forms the southern border of Veenhuizen. There where the straight Generaal van den Boschweg ends at the former Executive Hotel. All the fields we overlook, all the canals and forests date from after 1823, so after the establishment of Veenhuizen, and are the work of the settlers. In the forest around us we also see remnants of reclamation and drainage: we bump over dikes and through ditches, further on through a bunch of straight beeches. Day in and day out, the paupers cleared the peat.
A few years ago, something special was discovered about the ‘gold-coloured’ groundwater of Veenhuizen. It turned out to be rich in humic acid, a kind of panacea extracted from peat. If you mix it with fulvic acid, you can write with it. If you put it on your skin, it will become resilient. Food for the wellness industry! He developed a ‘peat line’, from peat soap to peat gold and peat sludge.
Cycling on the Pauperpad
You can cycle along the Pauperpad between Veenhuizen and Frederiksoord, two colonies of Benevolence. You cross the land that was cultivated by the paupers of the colonies. Along the way you will pass through Bosschoord, the Doldersummerveld, Zorgvlied, Vledder and the beautiful Aeckingerzand.
Hotel Bitter en Zoet (Veenhuizen) and Hotel Frederiksoord (Frederiksoord) also offer the route as a listening tour. Veenhuizenboeit.nl/het-pauperpad
4. THE NATURE AREA – Snakes, unusual heather and mosses
The walk continues through the forest, past a skating rink around the bend, onto the open Fochteloërveen. Light, space! We follow an unpaved path, it bounces under our walking boots. The view seems endless, while this is only the last piece of raised moor of the extensive peat package that once covered Drenthe.
Peat consists of a layer of compressed dead plants, sometimes meters thick. Where the peat layer grows above the water level, it is referred to as high moor. Very little of that remains, it was almost completely excavated for the extraction of peat. The Fochteloërveen escaped the fury of reclamation, partly due to the support of then Queen Wilhelmina. Now the high moor patch is the eyeball of Natuurmonumenten and the domain of viper, grass snake and smooth snake.
And those golden pipe straws that we like so much? They are a thorn in the side of Natuurmonumenten. They mean that there is a lot of nitrogen in the air and soil. The straws displace the more interesting lavender heather, cap heath and last but not least the rare sphagnum mosses, the lungs of the rare high moor.
5. VIEW TOWER – Watch for cranes
Further on, hidden between trees, De Zeven looms, a viewing tower with a window with a viewer at the highest point (18 metres). We scan the peat, slightly swaying in the wind. It looks like a steppe. A man who has followed us up, panting – camera with giant lens on it – talks about his target, the colony of ‘cranes’. He means the cranes that forage in the Fochteloërveen. And says: “With its stilts, the crane smoothly wads through the marshy bottom. And safe too, because the area is too wet and too open for its attackers. If they do show up, the crane retreats high and dry onto a clump of pipe straws, the water all around like a moat.”
The man plays the trumpet sound of the crane and shows a picture of the bird. Wingspan: 2 meters. Height: 1.30 meters. Spotting the lucky charm is not given to us today.
On to Appelscha; another two hours walk. Late in the afternoon we pass the drawbridge and walk into the Hulst eatery. Meet the smell of fries.
By road
Walk across the grounds of the Veenhuizen colony (blue route, 2.2 km) and then take a line walk to Appelscha (15.5 km) along the Fochteloërveen.
In Veenhuizen: the blue route through Veenhuizen (white arrow on blue pole) starts at the Tourist Information Point Veenhuizen Boeit (Oude Gracht 40, Veenhuizen) and leads, among other things, to the Prison Museum. The route ends at the T-junction with the information center on your right and junction 52 around the corner.
To Appelscha: The line walk to Appelscha starts at the T-junction with junction 52, follow 53 via Generaal van de Boschweg (across the canal, brown-white signs). From 53 the color of the signs changes: red-blue with white arrow. Follow junctions 71, 73, 74, 32, 27, 24, 51, 56, 77, 79, 78, direction 93, but turn off on the other side of the canal (Vaart Zuidzijde) to bus stop Riemsdraai, the terminus.
The route is on: nandaraaphorst.nl
How do I get there?
Public transport: At Assen station, take bus 84 in the direction of Drachten, get off at the Generaal van den Boschweg stop in Veenhuizen. Then walk 800 m to Tourist Information Center Veenhuizen Boeit. From Appelscha you take the bus back to Assen station (bus 114 and 115).
Auto: parking Haulerweg is close to the Tourist Information Center Veenhuizen. Return from Appelscha with bus 114 or 115. Count on a travel time of at least 1.5 hours.
Read also:
Still fascinating: re-education colony Veenhuizen
Around a million Dutch people have ancestors who spent part of their lives in the Drenthe Colonies of Benevolence.