Statue of dike worker in Onderdijk
A monumental protector of 126 kilometers
West Friesland is surrounded by the 126-kilometer-long West Frisian Omringdijk. For over 750 years, this dike has been there as a protector against the water of the Zuiderzee and, more recently, the North Sea and the Schermer and Beemster lakes. The dike was made by human hands and the image of the dike worker in Onderdijk reminds us of that work. The plaque says: thanks to all workers from the past for their fight against the water.
Work on the West Frisian Omringdijk was longer than on the pyramids, cathedrals and the Great Wall of China. Thus Johan J. Schilstra, author of the book "In the spell of the dike" (1974) and then member of the Provincial States. In 1983, on his initiative, the dike was promoted to a provincial monument, the first in the province's history.
The Omringdijk is prominent almost everywhere in the area. Turning water along the IJsselmeer, swinging like green garland between Medemblik and Schagen and then east and south to Alkmaar. There he is somewhat difficult to follow in the city districts, but he appears again in full glory at Oudorp and walks east to find the IJsselmeer again at Oudendijk.
Enemy
Only in the 8th century AD did the savage salt marsh area, which was then West Friesland, be rediscovered by humans as an area to be inhabited. The first people settled on the clearly visible, sandy creek ridges. From there they went into the peat area with the first objective of making that wet peat package suitable for arable farming through dewatering.
Water flows from high to low. But the top layer of peat of a worked piece of land oxidizes: it disappears into nothing. The industrious West Frisians worked with the exploitation of their agricultural lands themselves below sea level! The raging sea water became their big enemy.
They tried to keep the land dry by building protective dikes.
Storm floods
The first dikes were probably grass dikes with a large foreland, later seaweed was used. That seaweed became hard as a result of compression and virtually unaffected by seawater. The smaller dikes were merged into the West Frisian Omringdijk in the early 13th century.
But this relatively low dyke could not always turn the water. Storm tides were a threat to the Omringdijk for centuries. The Sint Elisabeth flood in 1421 caused a dyke breach at Petten, and the dyke between Sint Maarten and Valkkoog also did not hold.
The biggest disaster was the breakthrough of the seawall between Scharwoude and Schardam in 1675. On 5 November, during a heavy storm with high water, a stretch of seaweed north of Schardam was lifted and pushed away. The salty water poured in, scoured a thirty-foot deep waal (or weel or wheel) and washed over the polder land. The big wheel, south of Scharwoude, was created after this disaster. There is a monument on the dike that reminds us of the last major dike breach in West Friesland.