Emmeloord, The Town On The Bottom Of The Sea

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29002, 17 September 1959, Page 13

Emmeloord, The Town On The Bottom Of The Sea

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Twenty years ago, the only inhabitant of my town were the fish on the bottom of the Zuider Zee. But all that was changed when the Netherlands reclaimed the North-eastern Polder, adding 135,000 acres of fertile soil to the land which our country has been slowly winning ’ back from the sea down through its history. At first, there were only fish and old-fashioned fishing boats. Then in 1940 came dredges, tugs, barges, cranes, dragline excavators ... a modern armada led by engineers. They reclaimed the North-eastern Polder providing new land and rich farms for our overcrowded country. Just before the engineers closed the last gap in the ring-dyke to seal off the Polder, and before the pumping stations got going, bargeloads of fertile soil were brought to one part of the area with a sandy bottom, and the sand was moved to the centre of the polder. It was here, on this man-made

JOHN PREGER]

sandy foundation, that my town, Emmeloord, was built, named after part of the former island of Schokland which is now surrounded by dry land. Today it is a busy little town of 8500 inhabitants —capital of the North-eastern Polder and certainly the most modern town in Western Europe. We have more than 1600 houses with 56 shops and 55 buildings used by the industries which have moved into the town. New houses and shops are going up almost every day. And life goes on in Emmeloord without anyone giving a second’s thought to the fact that, if the dyke were to give way, all this would be covered with more than twelve feet of water . . . because we know it won’t happen. The first family settled in Emmeloord in 1943. Subsequent settlers came from all over the Netherlands—north, south, east and west—and they produced a typical Dutch town with an enormous restaurant, a shopping centre, several churches and, of course, a big post office and a number of schools which are all good examples of our modern architecture. There’s a huge' market in the centre of town which opens every Thursday when the farmers drive in by car from all over the Polder to sell their produce and buy equipment. Of course, it’s not quite true that life in Emmeloord on the bottom of the sea is the same as anywhere else. For example, if a farmer has trouble with a tractor he just picks up his telephone and calls the local dealer . . . who has a Piper Cub plane on an airstrip at the edge of the city. In a few minutes, the repairs are. made.

But in many ways Emmeloord is a typical market town. For instance, the cattle fair is held every week in the main square. It is attended not only by farmers from Polder: breeders come from all over Holland, for our cows and horses are famous throughout the country. Emmeloord is a prosperous little place. The farming is good and industry (most of it related to agriculture) has been settling in the town, keeping pace with its growth. But Emmeloord is not a kind of frontier city that has grown up anyhow. Architects and townplanners have taken good care of its layout. There are gardens and green verges between the houses, and at the north end of town there is a 125-acre wood with an open-air theatre, a swimming pool and sports fields. As for the shop.%, they compete favourably with those in other cities for smart clothes and the rest. Actually, the only thing that is missing from Emmeloord is a town hall. We are building one now, but we don’t have a burgomaster yet or a municipal council. Until all the other polders in the former Zuider Zee are reclaimed—(that will be around 1980) the town and the polder will be governed by a special representative of the Crown, the landdrost. who heads the Northeastern Polder Board. So for the time being the inhabitants of Emmeloord vote only in national elections. In spite of our short history, or because of it. we have become one of the leading tourist attractions of the Netherlands. People come from all over the world to see how we live on the sea floor. Emmeloord is still the youngest town in Holland. It will remain so for some years, until Lelystad. named after Dr Cornells Lely, the father of the Zuider Zee plan, is completed and becomes the capital of the twelfth province of the Netherlands. Even then, though, we will remain proud of our town and so will the rest of the Dutch people. They consider it a landmark in the victorious struggle which they have been waging for centuries against the sea.—(U.N.E.S.C.O.)