Into the almost wild

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Holland is said to be derived from the old Dutch word ‘holtland’ or woodland in English. If this is true, it for sure is a long time ago one could perceive it that way. In the early middle ages, the last primal forests were cleared along with the last brown bears and moos. Ever since then the forests grew thinner and thinner, untill finally man-made heathland covered most (1) of the higher sandy soils in the former ‘holtland’. It was not before desertification started threatening villages to be buried under sand, and animal husbandry moved permanently into stables that people started replanting these areas.

Nowadays a 400.000 hectares mixture of broadleaved and coniferous forest, residue heathland and sand dunes offer something like 17 million Dutch healthy entertainment in the weekends (2). Not that wild maybe, but with an early start on a rare winters day you might avoid most of your 17 million countrymen and experience something, well, almost wild.

Before sunrise i take off for the next-door National Park. As modern technology and logistics come to a stop on our roads and railways, walking still proceeds at the usual speed in this frosty landscape. Roe deer, hares, birds and mice had been up before me and left their tracks in the freshly fallen snow. Wild boar have been digging pits an impressive 1 meter deep, the fresh earth contrasting with an otherwise white landscape but the constructors long gone.

By the time I return home after a morning trip (on map), quite some of our climate sceptic, ignorant, hungry, and anorectic joined in 7 cm’s of snow and loads of sun. Today they agree on at least one thing; this is great fun!