Room of Energy

This is a tactile object. You may touch it.

In front of you is an old tool in a box. It’s a peat spade. You may lift it up. It was used to loosen peat, which for centuries was used as fuel. It’s made from dried peat soil: the result of centuries of accumulation of layers of old plants.

In the 17th century, Dutch people discovered that they could earn quite a lot of money by selling peat. For this reason, they dug up large parts of the peat layer in Drenthe and other parts of the country. It was a very heavy job, which required a peat spade. A peat spade is somewhat similar to a normal garden spade, except that the blade is wider. The handles come in different lengths and types and the width of the blade can vary considerably.

The width depends on the type of peat to be cut. This peat spade is 121 centimetres high. The handle is 3 centimetres thick. And the blade is 40 centimetres wide and 20 centimetres high. It’s very heavy. Try lifting it.

Peat can either be dredged or cut from the ground as individual turfs. In the latter case, blocks of fixed dimensions are cut from the peat. You stick the spade into the ground with great force. The cuts you make determine the right size for the blocks of peat.

After that, the peat can be dug out of the ground, with the help of a trailer. Using a peat spade, a peat worker would be able to cut around ten thousand turfs per day. When coal production resumed after the First World War, the peat market collapsed in 1920. Peat spades were needed less. How would you like to cut peat with a spade in all kinds of weather?

In January 1903, I was hired for a year by skipper Wendelaar. I had only just turned sixteen. I got ninety guilders. Plus board and laundry, which meant I got food, and my clothes were washed. Wendelaar was the skipper of the Velina, a ship owned by a peat dealer from Erica. 
 

On 2 January, I officially became his skipper’s mate. At that point the ship was still docked in Coevorden, with an empty hold. I travelled there by horse-drawn mail coach from my hometown Hoogeveen. When I arrived, the skipper was waiting for me.
The Velina was a barge, a kind of flat-bottomed boat. When there was no cargo on board, you could see right into the ship’s hold. Because there were no hatches to close off the hold. Only the front and back of the ship had a fixed deck. Planks were laid on the cross beams of the hold, so you could walk from front to back. Below the aft deck was the deckhouse, the place where the skipper and his family lived. I slept in the forecastle under the foredeck. I also had a wardrobe there for my clothes.
We hauled peat from Zwartemeer, where the owner of the barge had a peat bog. Once loaded, we sailed across Nieuw-Amsterdam to Katerveer via Coevorden, Dedemsvaart and Zwolle. As the hold had no hatches, the cargo was covered with tarpaulins. On the smaller canals, the ship was towed by a horse walking on the bank. When we got back to open water, I had to quickly catch the horse’s towrope, roll it up between my legs and throw it back to the man guiding the horse. Yes, I learned something new every day.
 

We sailed upstream from Katerveer to Westervoort where we anchored. The skipper would then walk to Arnhem to sell some of the peat, usually to a factory along the river IJssel. We unloaded the remaining peat in Bingerden at a large brickworks where they baked glazed and unglazed bricks. We always took a cargo of bricks with us on the return trip if they were available. If not, we’d sail back to the peat bog with an empty barge.
 

We often faced delays just before Zwolle. For instance, if no tugboat was available or if the towing fee they asked was too high. On those occasions, I’d take a bucket and walk to the dairy market to buy milk. Sometimes local farmers’ wives came over to the barge. They would carry a yoke with two buckets of milk over their shoulders. Milk was sold by the jug, which held four litres. Because several farmers’ wives stopped by, I always inquired about the price first. As market day came to an end, they were anxious to get rid of their milk, and would sometimes sell you four litres for just ten cents. Farmers were poor back then.
 

That year, I only spent one day at home. The skipper’s wife was about to give birth and it happened in Dedemsvaart, so I was close to home. I say ‘close’, but Hoogeveen was still about a 3-4 hour walk! Straight through the Oosterveld and the Zuidwolderveld. All heathlands. Out on Saturday afternoon and back on Sunday. Thankfully, there were paths through the heathland, so it was quite an easy walk.
 

At the end of the year, my employment ended. The skipper sailed on. But it was nearly Christmas, and my shift was over... I headed home by train. For me, it was time to skate, butcher rabbits and clean up the chicken coop. That’s more or less how I spent my time during the six weeks I was home. After that, I went to work for another skipper.

Berend Klein (Emmer-Compascuum, 1910) recounts growing up in a family of peat diggers. Around 1910, his father Tjeerd worked as a year-round peat digger for a peat boss from Emmer-Compascuum. The entire family helped out, including Berend’s mother and his seven siblings.

Length: approximately. 3:20 minutes

I was born in 1910 at number 17 Oosterdiep in Emmer-Compascuum. That was the first branch canal below the lock, at the bend on the north side. Shortly afterwards, we moved to the Breede Sloot, right behind the lock near the German border, at the end of the branch canal. We lived in an old shack on the bog; the lower part of the hut was made of peat sods. There were three other peat shacks. These did look a little better, but it was a primitive existence. But luckily, you’re not aware of that when you’re a child.

As children, we were a bit feral. In summer, we walked barefoot through the peat for weeks on end. And we went to bed without washing our feet. Did you think I had a bed all to myself? No, the three of us slept in an alcove bed. And when it came to clothes, we only had the bare essentials. I was twelve when I got my first pair of shoes. With wooden soles. What a luxury...

My father was very religious. He thought prayers and Bible readings would make everything alright. My mother was a strong and decent woman. It’s because of her that we managed to make something of ourselves. She was always there for us and tried to keep the place as tidy as she could. Sometimes, she’d clash with my father. We were lucky because, unlike other families, we weren’t ill very often. Visits to the doctor cost one guilder. My mother had a baby every two years until there were eight of us. She couldn’t cope very well. Every now and then she’d get hysterical and stay in bed for a few days.

There wasn’t much money coming in. The peat boss we worked for also had a shop. It sold everything, from petroleum to gin. Basically everything a working-class family needed. The peat boss kept track of what we owed. If our debt got too high, we had to tighten our belts a bit. In winter, it was often too frosty and snowy to work in the peat bog. So you bought everything on credit. In spring, we could all go back to work. Men, women and children, including my mother. Children worked too,  the smallest ones sometimes sleeping in wheelbarrows.

In 1923, I left school. I was so happy! But soon I found out that was a big mistake... Because I had to get up at five in the morning to help my mother dry peat. It was tough, working with peat.

We had to load peat, too, and be at the barge at five in the morning.  It wasn’t easy, stacking those slabs of peat onto a wheelbarrow with my small hands. But money had to be made. I can still hear the wind blowing through the ropes and smell the tarry smell of the barge. When I came home, my eyes hurt, because of all the dust rising off that dried peat! We didn’t have running water so in the evenings we’d bathe in the canal. We did have a well, but it stank of peat and the water was brown.

Most peat diggers literally worked themselves to death. They walked crookedly and were always in pain. There wasn’t much in the way of social support. When diggers couldn’t work anymore, they got some money from the church.