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Living History

The Zuiderzee Museum

The Zuiderzee, a large shallow inlet of the North Sea, became a lake on 28 May 1932, when the Afsluitdijk dam across its entrance was completed. Fishing for herring in the Zuiderzee began to end after it was decided that what is now known as the IJsselmeer would become a freshwater lake, which had a huge impact on life & work in the many villages surrounding the lake. Today, only the people of Urk still earn their living from the sea, with their fishing fleet spread out across ports along the North Sea. To preserve the region’s cultural heritage & maritime history, the Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen, a one-hour train journey from Amsterdam Central Station, shows what village life around the Zuiderzee was like between 1880 and 1930.

The indoor museum, open year round, houses the permanent exhibition Sea of Stories and a large collection of historic boats. The outdoor museum is open from April through October. With over 140 historic buildings brought in from the various fishing villages surrounding the Zuiderzee, it’s a village of its own, featuring a church, many houses & farms, and a school where you can learn how to write with a dip pen. There are several shops, including a pharmacy in art-nouveau style and a post office, and workshops such as a smithy, a smokery & other places for fish processing, as well as larger businesses such as a shipyard, a steam-powered laundry and a lime kiln. Volunteers give demonstrations of crafts such as rope-making & mending fishing nets, and the inhabitants of Urk will be happy to catch you up on the events of the day in 1905, and to moan about the 1½-cent price increase for the ferry crossing to Enkhuizen.

Reader comments

Femme

Enkhuizen and Hoorn, once two of six home ports to the Dutch East India Company, were considered ‘dead cities’ long before the Afsluitdijk was built. Dwindling in the 18th and 19th centuries, they were eclipsed by the rising importance of Amsterdam, and became mainly quiet fishing towns. (The term ‘dead cities’ was coined by Henry Havard in his 1874 book La Hollande pittoresque. Voyage aux villes mortes du Zuiderzée.)

Annemieke

Museum visitors traveling to Enkhuizen by car can best avoid the Sluisweg car park, for which the museum charges € 7 per day. The Stationsplein car park, located next to the railway station, is free of charge, and the ferry for the museum leaves from the jetty behind the tourist office opposite the station. It takes 25 minutes for the ferry to get to the museum. On foot it’s just 15 minutes.