Wanderlust: A Tiny Isle in the Northern Sea E-Book

Katja Just

• Herausgeber: Eden Books - ein Verlag der Edel Verlagsgruppe
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: Wanderlust
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 276

Beschreibung

Hallig Hooge is a tiny marsh island just off the North German coast with about 100 inhabitants. One of them is Katja Just. 16 years ago, she decided to trade her busy city life and her promising career in Munich for the contemplative everyday life on Hooge and hasn't regretted a day since. Despite its seclusion, life never gets dull on Hallig Hooge! From encounters with stubborn Hallig people to fascinating natural spectacles and unexpected challenges on the edge of civilization, Katja Just has a lot of stories to tell. With humor and attention to detail, she presents anecdotes from her life on Hallig Hooge and shows readers how eventful and satisfying life at the supposed end of the world can be.

Leseprobe

"Love is eternal presence."

Stefan Branch

prologue

What is so exciting about my life story that I could write an entire book about it? I was born in Munich and spent my child and youth years in a modern terraced house estate in an idyllic Munich suburb. Today I live on Hallig Hooge in a listed thatched cottage that is over three hundred years old.

So what? Others were born in Berlin-Mitte and now live in Prien am Chiemsee and do not write a book about it. Okay, it was a big step when I turned my back on Munich at the age of 25 and moved to the almost six square kilometers large Hallig. Some said: "Still so young and then alone on an island with just a hundred inhabitants?" Or behind closed doors: "At the age of 25, away from Munich? I guess she's not ticking right." Either way, most people thought I was crazy.

I got to know Hallig Hooge with my family during my summer holidays. On my first visit, I was six or seven. Like all the little girls, I loved farm holidays. Stroking and feeding calves, riding out, watching countless birds fly and breed, being there while fishing. Roller-skating across the streets, using the wind in the jacket held over your head as the drive, and sinking into the dung heap in the most beautiful Sunday pants on the neighbouring farm - even if the latter is unplanned.

Although I wasn't on Hooge for several years after this fun time in my childhood, this Hallig took her firm place in my heart and in my dreams. Even as a child, I knew you'd move there someday. The thoughts of Hooge always brought with them the feeling of freedom, lightness and longing for infinite vastness.

Many years later I came back to Hooge because my mother and her second husband had bought a house there in the meantime. Whenever my time allowed, I visited her and got to know the Hallig from another side. Munich was the centre of my life, the Hallig remained my place of longing. But live there? On an island at the top of the north, in the middle of the North Sea? How this decision came about and how I live my life here, I would like to tell you about it. A life that is not determined by the rigid schedule of a clocked everyday life, but by the rhythm of ebb and flow. A life with its own heartbeat.

I am often asked: "What do you actually do on a Hallig?" - "What's the difference between living on a Hallig and living on the mainland?" - "When did you start to count yourself a Hooger?" I will try to answer these and similar questions.

However, anyone who hopes that I will divulge the secrets of Hallig life in this book or penetrate the privacy of others should not even begin to read it. This is all about my personal history, the path I began as a 25 year old and now look back on as a 42 year old. Whoever reads this book will get an insight into my life on Hooge and accompany me for a while on my way.

Feel invited to Hallig Hooge, in my house at the end of the country.

CHAPTER 1

An oasis in the rough sea

It was in August 1995 when my mother called and said: "We can buy the house where we are spending our holidays! What do you think of that?"

"Well, that's a nice souvenir you want to bring back from your vacation. Something different," I said surprised. "Is this some kind of joke?"

No, it wasn't a joke!

My parents, by which I mean my mother and my stepfather, were once again guests at Hooge and this time they lived in a house on the Ockenswarft which they had discovered a year earlier during one of their walks. A small thatched house, over three hundred years old, with a large wild garden and a holiday home. The Ockenswarft is located in the east of the Hallig, far away from the hustle and bustle that can occur on a Hallig, at least during the summer months. A terp is an artificially raised mound of earth, mainly from clay soil, which looks like a round settlement hill, depending on how many houses stand on this hill, which is about six metres high. With around ten buildings, the Ockenswarft is one of the larger of the ten inhabited warps on Hooge.

My parents had just been on Hooge for a week when the landlady asked to go through the apartment with a real estate agent. She had to sell the house and therefore an expert opinion should be drawn up. So it was over with a quiet and relaxing holiday, because my parents had fallen in love with the house and were now considering buying this gem themselves. A decision that could turn her life upside down from now on.

In fact, my mother and my stepfather were making nails with heads. She had already stopped working and he accepted his employer's offer to take early retirement. The sale of the house in Munich was initiated and the move to the Hallig was organized for the beginning of January. For both it was not the first move, so nobody thought that this move would be different from the others. Also there were moves in the wintertime. But a move to a Hallig in the winter - in this case the people from the mainland are directly put to the first test. The ferry between Hooge and the mainland port of Schlüttsiel transports everything that has to go back and forth between the mainland and Hallig: Goods, merchandise, two- and four-legged pensioners and - as in our case - whole households.

Wind forecasts, tidal calendars, jetties - what role does it play when the wind blows from the east and the water level indicates that water is running out? That doesn't influence an established moving troop from Munich! But the fact that wind and water definitely have the last word was felt by the helpers on the ferry. The journey was almost complete, the truck was parked on the ferry and the first round of warming tea punch was ordered. The 75 minute crossing was a welcome break. Everyone had just made themselves comfortable when the captain stepped up to the table.

"We don't have enough water under the keel! This means that the truck on the Hallig cannot drive down from the ferry because the slope of the bridge will be too steep. You need to reload."

That was it with the longed-for break, because everyone was immediately clear what that meant. It was about an hour now to pack the cartons and furniture onto the trolleys carried by the ferry. A feat of strength! Exhausted and hungry, the squad grabbed the truck again and gradually moved out of the truck and onto the trailers. In spite of the time pressure nobody got into a sweat, because with the icy east wind that is usual here this is almost impossible.

Arriving at Hooge, my stepfather and I received the tired helpers and the fully loaded trolleys. Both of us had arrived a week earlier with my uncle to do the preparations. Sleeping and parking spaces had to be created. At the jetty a Hallig inhabitant came to our aid with his tractor. He drove the three fully loaded trolleys one after the other to Ockenswurft. On the way past the first two terps I sat high up on the car and tried to hold cartons, living room lamp, sofa and rubber tree at the same time. Until then, I had no idea how long the route from the jetty to the Ockenswarft could be. If we drove with the car otherwise only a few minutes, it took this time a felt eternity. I thought all the time Hopefully no one will see that, but you can confidently delete that sentence from your vocabulary if you pull on a Hallig. Half way the kitchen cupboard fell from the trailer, because the wind was not only icy, but blew with force six from east. Even if the piece of furniture had been within reach for me, I could probably only have moved in slow motion, my limbs had frozen so stiffly. So I made myself heard loudly and meant the helpful tractor driver to stop. The kitchen cupboard was lifted up once more and the adventurous journey continued. In the meantime it had become dark and dark means in winter on the Hallig very dark! There are no street lights and when the moon is not shining, sometimes you can't see your hand in front of your eyes. But since the cargo lay unprotected on the trailers, everything still had to be brought into the house, no matter how tired and frozen we were. Sometime late at night, my parents finally said, "Welcome to the house on Landsende." That was in January 1996.

It was to take another four years before I, too, would register my first residence on the Hallig. Until then, I visited my parents as often as possible. Sometimes I flew for a long weekend, sometimes I drove the route by car, together with a friend, and when I really wanted to enjoy it, I rode the bike.

In these four years I have witnessed how my parents' new home developed into a gem. With devotion my mother transformed the wild garden into a blooming idyll, based on a monastery garden. Box trees border a total of five flower beds, each with red, yellow, white or blue flowering plants. There's a stem rose in the middle and something always blooms. Thus over the years a real small oasis has developed. An oasis where guests of the house also like to spend their holidays when they spend their holidays in one of the two holiday apartments that have been extended on the first floor. "The Green one" already existed. However, it has been completely refurnished and decorated. This apartment is the larger one, it can accommodate up to four people. It is kept in a warm green, the ceiling is not quite as high, old wooden beams can be seen, which gives this apartment something cosy and cosy. Especially in the winter months. Two years after moving in, my parents extended "The Blue ones" and furnished them in the Gustavian style, i.e. with Swedish warmth and cool colours. Also here there are two alcoves, which offer place for two persons. Guests often ask me if one could sleep in such a closet as a couple.

"It all depends on how much you like each other," is my answer. It is rare to lie like a match in a box, so two metres long and one metre wide are actually sufficient. Even very tall guests give me feedback that they find the alcoves very comfortable. I love sleeping in the alcoves, and they're space-saving too. My parents have not only created a new home for themselves, but also a place where holiday guests feel at home.

CHAPTER 2

The perfect plan and what came next

The plan was quite different. It was the famous "perfect plan" that we had developed together. My partner spoke of marriage and of children and a beautiful terraced house with garden in the Munich hinterland.

I grew up in Ismaning, a suburb of Munich, and spent the first 25 years of my life there. It was great growing up there. Rural, familiar and sheltered. In that little place they knew each other. In the terraced house settlement where I grew up, we children were a permanent clique. We regularly came up with plans and had some adventures. Our "territory" was huge, freedom seemed limitless. We were outside a lot, built stalls and "baked" sand cakes, which we of course tried extensively. During the time in primary school we were still close together, after that we went to different schools and the interests shifted. We haven't lost sight of each other until today, but we went very different ways.

My own led me to Lufthansa, where I completed a commercial apprenticeship and was subsequently hired. I moved from the parent company to Lufthansa Technik, directly at Munich Airport. There I also met my partner. He was the computer expert and had to solve problems in our department. He saw a motorbike suit hanging from my clothes stand and wanted to know if it was mine. Yes, it was mine, because I drove to work by motorbike every day, and so we got into conversation and very quickly also to the first joint ride, because he was himself a motorcyclist. That was our greatest common passion, as was mountain hiking. The love for nature was given on both sides.

I was in my early twenties when my partner talked about marriage and children. Ismaning was no longer the village where I had grown up. It had grown, became modern and a popular place to live for people who recognised early on the advantage of the constantly growing infrastructure around Munich. The village character was lost, which saddened me, even though I was able to recognize and understand the economic upswing that was slowly turning this small town into an exclusive suburb of Munich. The picture that had developed at the end of the nineties no longer had much in common with my childhood days. The offspring no longer went to school in groups of at least three or four children in wind and weather, but were driven individually by car to the school gate. They weren't cadets, bugs or r4s anymore. They were huge family coaches. Of course the children were also picked up again, because the afternoons were tightly clocked with additional courses, club visits or theatre rehearsals. Sure, we were also in the sports club or had music lessons at that time, but the time we spent together outside clearly prevailed.

All this was present when my partner confronted me with his desire to have children. My memories, which were only a few years old, stood opposite this wish. That made me insecure. Not because I am afraid of development or progress, both are important and existential, especially for the next generation. But the spirit of adventure and freedom that we were able to live out as children in the Munich foothills was hardly possible in the cities even then. It was clear to me that if I had children, they should be able to experience adventures in the great outdoors without having to worry about them all the time. I didn't want to raise children in the surrounding area of Munich and so I said unmistakably: "If children, then only on Hooge!

On the Hallig children can still experience nature to touch and enjoy a great deal of freedom. Although the infrastructure there is capable of expansion and the chance of good earning opportunities is limited, there is still much that can be developed and expanded. The sense of adventure that we have experienced in childhood is a commodity that cannot be produced and developed. Besides, it's priceless! If I hadn't known it then, I wouldn't know what it was today. You can't make up for it, you have to live it! That's exactly what I wanted to offer my children and my partner could understand.

He had just started his own business in the IT sector and was therefore ideally qualified to become a computer and Internet specialist in the far north. I could have joined my parents' small rental business to take it over on a long-term basis. Children would have fitted very well into this construct. A wonderful environment, expanse to the never-ending horizon, cows, calves, horses, sheep, birds, own dogs and the family around it. All the "evil", all the hustle and bustle and bustle that life in large communities or cities can bring would remain on the mainland. But of course also the usual, the hobbies, the friends and in this case also the family of my partner. It would be a big step to tear down the tents in Munich and move the centre of life to a small Hallig in the middle of the North Sea. For him it was ultimately greater than for me, worries and doubts spread to him. We discussed, began to argue, the common dream lost its lightness.

In October 2000 I finally moved to Hallig Hooge alone, because suddenly everything was different and went very fast: I quit the job I always loved, sold my motorcycle with tears in my eyes, stored my belongings in a small van. The partner I wanted a family with, not by my side anymore.

Accompanied by Anne and Lutz, my two best friends, who helped me with words and deeds during my departure, I set off for the north at night. It was a windy, rainy night, but with us in the car we felt three intimacies and security. Anne and I gave our childhood experiences their best, because we have known each other since we were three years old. Lutz and I reminisced about our time together at Lufthansa. In between we forgot the reason for our trip and laughed and were really exuberant. With these two at my side, I could forget the uncertainty that lay deep inside me. Even the rain, which was constantly pelting down the windshield, couldn't spoil our mood.

At ten o'clock von Schlüttsiel left the ferry which brought us to the small island. It still felt like it always did when I came to visit the Hallig, where just about a hundred people live. Arrive, unload, eat. My mother spoiled us and we got the best food you can get after a night out: a hot, homemade vegetable soup. This awakens the maltreated spirits. Lutz was on Hooge for the first time and met my parents only now. And those who are on a North Sea hallig or island for the first time must of course also be served one of the many specialities. So he was able to enjoy a freshly prepared crab bread. The highest for crab lovers! And fresher than here, in the middle of the North Sea, you can't get it anywhere.

In the meantime the sun had prevailed and the cloud cover had disappeared. To straighten our bones, we took a walk to the dike. Also present was my dog Chico, who had been a permanent member of the family for three months. I had last seen him in August when my mother and I had brought him to Hooge together during my last holiday. The joy of the reunion was enormous on both sides. Lutz and Chico played uninterruptedly with a thick rope, Anne and I enjoyed the view of the sea and the infinite vastness, which let me slowly calm down. A deep calm that developed into a pleasant tiredness in the fresh air and after a good meal. The last night was still in our bones and so we went after the extensive walk directly to my new apartment.

For my new start on the Hallig I had rented a two-room apartment in the direct neighbourhood. The apartment on the first floor offered a wonderful view over the Halligland. Since I still had to renovate it, there was nothing in its place yet. So we just set up a makeshift mattress camp in the future bedroom. There were enough pillows and blankets and we didn't need any more. It didn't take long for all three of us to sleep soundly.

One window remained open overnight. When I woke up and went towards the bathroom, I saw that we had visitors from a small "king". A wren flew through my living room. He didn't seem excited at all and let himself easily be guided outside. A "king" as a guest in my apartment - I took this as a sign that I had done everything right. He encouraged me and gave me confidence.

The next morning at eight o'clock the three of us left the Hallig with the ferry and drove the approximately one thousand kilometres to Ismaning again. The last little things still had to be done and farewells had to be carried out. Some even forever. Two days later I drove the route again. Alone this time. During the drive I heard from Nena's Somehow, somewhere, sometime up to Bon Jovis It's my life everything what the radio gave away. And I couldn't have described my feelings more aptly myself. I wasn't really sure whether it was more of a ride with an unfinished finish or a ride to a new beginning. I didn't know if I felt like crying or laughing. My feelings were on a roller coaster. I left so much behind. Was my decision right or unreasonable? What had become of my or our perfect plan? What from my dreams? What would become of my friendships if they could stand the distance? The people I preferred to have around me were now almost a thousand kilometres away. People who told me how much they'd miss me to say goodbye. And I didn't know what my plan was gonna be right now. I didn't have any.

One thing was clear to me, though. It was a farewell to my past 25 years, my childhood, my homeland, a supposedly perfect plan and much more. And it was also certain that this was the beginning of a new phase of life. I moved to the Hallig Hooge and laid the foundation for a new life with many chapters.

CHAPTER 3

The Hallig - just a bunch of silt?

When I say that I live and work on Hooge, I often hear: "You live on a Hallig? What are you doing there all day? There's nothing going on!" These and similar reactions come primarily from people who have no idea of a Hallig. Neither do these people know where the Halligen lie, nor what they are, let alone what can be done there. One or the other might remember that the Halligen topic was once discussed in geography lessons.

"They're such piles of mud, aren't they?"

"Aren't those those little islands up by Sylt?"

Wrong! Halligen are not islands! And the neighbouring island is not called Sylt either, but Pellworm. Or Amrum. Or Föhr. Sylt is geographically not far away, but this island is not within sight.

The most obvious difference to an island is that Halligen are flooded several times a year. How often this happens depends on the one hand on whether a Hallig has a so-called summer dike, and on the other hand on how strong and persistent the "Blanke Hans" is. This is the title of the North Sea when it rages and storms and a land under the result is. Then the Hallig is blank and only the terps look out of the water. Each one for itself, like an ark. Hooge is the only one of the ten Halligen that has had a closed summer dike since 1914. This flat dike is called so because it is supposed to keep the smaller floods during the summer months from coming to the country. This serves to protect agricultural land. The floods in winter pass over this dike with the appropriate wind conditions. These stone edges were erected by the dike workers on the Halligen by laborious manual work. If these didn't exist, we'd have wet feet a lot more often. So on Hooge we speak only of three to five Landuntern in the autumn and winter time and extremely rarely of a Landunter in the summer months. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, sometimes it starts in late summer - nature doesn't follow statistical guidelines.

Further differences are buried deeper and are still much discussed, by scholars as well as by laymen. Halligen don't have groundwater, they say. Or also: Islands have a continental shelf, Halligen do not. Halligen have grown over the centuries. They are not remains of a former coastal region, although this does not apply to the Hallig Nordstrandischmoor. This small and youngest Hallig is actually together with the peninsula Nordstrand and the island Pellworm the remnant of the sunken island Strand. This disappeared 1634 with the so-called "Burchardiflut", which is also known as "second Grote Maandränke", from the map.

One speaks thus of small islets or also marsh islands, that are flooded more or less regularly, since they lie only approximately one meter above the sea level. Then we're talking about a Landunter. This makes them unique and therefore the houses on the Halligen are built on terps. On Hooge there are ten inhabited and one uninhabited mound, the Pohnswarft. It was destroyed in a violent storm surge in 1825, known as the "February Flood", so badly that it has not been inhabited since then. No other flood has brought such destruction, even the storm surges of 1962 and 1976 were comparatively mild.

The Halligen lie in the middle of the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea, one of the few wilderness areas that is still said to be a European primeval landscape. By the way, this is also said of the high region of the Alps. I have moved, so to speak, from one primeval landscape to another and have to say that I love both of them and don't want to miss any of them. The Wadden Sea is one of the most bird-rich areas in Europe, with millions of wading and water birds resting here. Since 1985 this area has been designated a national park. Not only the seabed, which can be explored at low tide, is full of attractions, but there is also always something going on on the salt marshes. There is no day when you cannot see or observe anything special.

In areas where the coexistence of nature and people is developed and tested in an exemplary manner, the primary objective is to protect cultural and natural landscapes. These are model regions that have been designated as so-called biosphere reserves by UNESCO. There are 15 biosphere reserves in Germany today, the northernmost of which is called the "Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea and Halligen". The Halligen have been part of it since 2005. The wish was originally born on Hooge by a group of four people and submitted as an application to the then municipal council. After a relatively short discussion, the latter agreed and was also able to convince the neighbouring Halligen. I was one of those four people.

Hallig Hooge and the other eight and nine Halligen respectively have a remarkable history that makes them unique in the world. They are situated in the middle of the sea, surrounded by a national park and part of a biosphere region - someone should say again that there is nothing going on here! There's always something going on here, you just have to be able to see it. Once upon a time, there were said to have been over a hundred Halligen. The remaining ones, which still exist today, are: Südfall, Süderoog, Norderoog, Habel, Oland, Gröde, Nordstrandischmoor, Hooge and Langeneß. The Hamburg Hallig has a dam since 1875, which connects the island with the mainland and over which even cars can drive, so she is only actually the tenth Hallig.

Hooge is also commonly known as the "Queen of the Halligen". Today, no one knows exactly how she came to this honor. Of course you're a little proud when people talk about your home or even your homeland, but is that also the case? Is Hooge above the other Halligen? I'd say that's not the case. There's no reason why Hooge should be queen. With its 560 hectares Hooge is the second largest Hallig, so Langeneß should be the empress and Nordstrandischmoor the princess. That would certainly not be a particularly promising marketing strategy. Today we speak more of the uniqueness of the Halligen and the individual strength of each individual. I think it's more appropriate. Nevertheless, there are royal and even imperial traces on Hooge.

Until 1864 Hooge belonged to Denmark. After a heavy storm tide, the then Danish King Frederik VI went on an inspection tour. He wanted to get a personal impression of the damage caused by the storm in his country. As soon as the king arrived at Hooge, the weather changed and he could no longer leave the Hallig. So he spent the night in what was then probably the most beautiful house on the Hallig, a 17th century captain's house. This house, which since then has been called "Königspesel" according to its status, is today a small, family-run museum that displays an impressive example of Frisian living culture. In this case the whole house is called Pesel, but this Frisian term actually refers only to a room in a residential building. The Pesel is the "good room" where guests were welcomed. Today we would equate that with the salon.

The traces that our last German empress indirectly left on Hooge are not so easy to understand. Empress Auguste Viktoria was outstandingly committed to Protestant church building and she was always strongly attached to her native Schleswig-Holstein. It is said that she had her fingers in the planning and/or financing of the Hoog Pastorate in 1907. Unfortunately, there are no well-founded sources, but if you look at the stately and for a Hallig atypical building on the Kirchwarft and consider the passion of the empress, it is easy to believe the story.

Artists have also discovered Hooge for themselves. Partly because of commissioned work, partly because of a passion for extraordinary landscapes. In order to stay at the Kirchwarft for a short time, I refer to the pulpit of our small Hallig church from 1641, which comes from the workshop of the Flensburg master Heinrich Ringeling. An artist from today has already carved his traces in stone in the truest sense of the word. Unique gravestones of Uli Lindow can be seen in the cemetery. If we go back about two hundred years, we meet the Halligmaler Jacob Alberts, who lived on Hooge especially during the summer months. I find it interesting that Jacob Alberts also settled in Munich for a few years during his apprenticeship. So even in former times the way from Munich to the Hallig was found. Nikolaus Soltau and Peter Lübbers are often mentioned in the same breath when talking about Hooges artists. But if these names don't mean anything to you, you certainly know this one: Emil Nolde. He is one of the most important expressionists in Europe and was fascinated by the unique landscape of the Halligen. During his stays at Hooge, he gave the peculiar Hallig world its own colours and its own character, thus stimulating the imagination of the viewer of his pictures even today. Just like Theodor Storm does in his novella Eine Halligfahrt. The poet's spiritual freedom is as boundless as the creative freedom of a painter, and Theodor Storm proves that he had a keen eye for the Hallig world when he raves about the Hallig as "floating dreams".

Five of the worldwide unique ten Halligen are inhabited and almost all can be visited by holidaymakers, although not all year round and not all with overnight stays. Every Hallig is different, each one has something different to discover and experience. The special features of the Halligen can not only be seen in their fauna and flora, but also in their history. They are not only accumulations formed in the course of the centuries by the deposition of various sediments. We don't just live here on man-made mounds of earth, the terps. Halligen are more! Here you are one step closer to heaven. The horizon has no end here. Here you experience "floating dreams" - more longing is not possible! A longing that can be fulfilled, experienced and lived here.

People who spend their holidays here enjoy the peace and quiet and the vastness. Or they roam along the salt marshes and let the wind blow their heads free. They inhale the air containing iodine and walk on the dike that protects the Halligland from the voracious "Blanken Hans".

"You live on a hallig?"

Yes, and I enjoy it! It is a privilege to be able to live in this unique place and to have such a primeval landscape on your doorstep.

"What are you doing all day?"

Like other people, we go about our work. When we have free time, we don't experience much else. But probably our environment is a bit more diverse. And probably our outlook is a bit more diverse.

"There's nothing going on on this mini island!"

Whoever says that has no idea!

By the way, if you say "island," even though you mean "hallig," you have to spend a local round. It's an unwritten law. Therefore, I recommend that everyone memorizes the difference between a Hallig and an island, as otherwise a visit to the Wadden Sea could be quite expensive.