Qualla: Hoogeveen

Hoogeveen: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

An old map of this place called it Locus Deserta Atque ob Multos Paludes Invia - a deserted land, impassable for its many swamps. The Latin is dramatic. The land, in the 17th century, was not. It was wet, dark, low, and worth almost nothing until somebody noticed that the brown rotting plant matter underfoot was fuel. In 1625 a Dutch nobleman named Roelof van Echten bought a tract of this swamp from local farmers and announced that he would drain it, dig it, and sell what came up. Hoogeveen began as a hole in the ground.

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Hoogeveen: The Town the Peat Built

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Peat is compressed bog vegetation, half-fossilized, and for centuries it heated Dutch houses, cooked Dutch meals, and ran small Dutch industries. To harvest it efficiently you needed water - canals to float the heavy blocks out, parallel ditches close enough together that a singl...

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Hoogeveen: Van Gogh in the Bogs

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In September 1883, Vincent van Gogh - thirty years old, broke, fresh from a failed attempt at family life in The Hague - took a train and a barge into Drenthe, looking for cheap lodging and motifs to paint. He spent about three months in this region, much of it walking between Ho...

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Hoogeveen: Resistance Town

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hoogeveen has a quieter heroism in its history. Soon after the German occupation began in 1940, the town became a center of Dutch resistance, partly through the work of Reverend Frits Slomp, who helped channel persecuted people - mostly Jews fleeing the western cities - into hidi...

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Hoogeveen: After the Canals

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By the 1960s the canals had outlived their purpose. Trucks had replaced barges, and most of the old wijken were filled in - paved over for streets and parking. Only a few villages around Hoogeveen, including Elim, Fluitenberg, and Noordscheschut, still carry water through the old...

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Hoogeveen: Locals

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hoogeveen has produced a striker who scores more international goals than anyone else in Dutch history. Vivianne Miedema, born here in 1996, is the all-time top scorer for the Netherlands national team across both the women's and men's squads, and the all-time top scorer in the E...

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