Moor- und Fehnmuseum (museum of bog and fen) Elisabethfehn - English information

<BODY BACKGROUND="BG_MOOR.GIF" BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC"> <TABLE BORDER="0" ALIGN="CENTER"><TR><TD><H2><IMG SRC="moorkl.GIF" WIDTH="636" HEIGHT="42" ALIGN="BOTTOM" ALT="Moor- und Fehnmuseum Elisabethfehn" BORDER="0" VSPACE="5"><BR> Short information in English</H2> </TD></TR></TABLE> <HR> <CENTER><A HREF="index.htm">Zur deutschsprachigen Startseite - To our home page (in German language)</A></CENTER> <HR> <p><img src="museum.jpg" width=181 height=230 hspace=10 vspace=5 border=0 align="left" alt="a look at the museum">The Moor- und Fehnmuseum Elisabethfehn is happy to welcome the English-speaking friends of the bogs and fens. Although we can only supply a short information about our museum in English, we hope that you will find it interesting. If you happen to pay a visit to Germany, you should not miss our place. Elisabethfehn is situated in the North-West of Germany, 40 km West of Oldenburg in the County Niedersachsen, near the Dutch border. Look at the <a href="plan.htm#plan">map</a>.</p> <p>Our opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Monday we are closed. Also, we take a winter break from November to February. But you may have a chance that we open for you anyway, if you call in advance (although our garden is not so attractive in winter). We can also supply English-speaking guides for groups.</p> <p><i>On the picture you see the old bog-ship "Jantina" in front of our museum.</i></p> <hr> <h2><img src="niedmoor.jpg" width=321 height=217 alt="blanket bog area in our garden" border=0 hspace=10 vspace=5 align="right">peat lands - Wastelands or heritage?</h2> <p><i>The picture shows the blanket bog area in our garden.</i></p> <p>Our exhibition about peat is distributed in two buildings and 1.5 hectares of outside terrain. In the museum you can find, divided into 7 different departments, the reaches:</p> <ul> <li>introduction with information about peat lands, <li>the flora and fauna of the bogs and fens, <li>the protection of peat lands, <li>the cultivation, and further the regional history of colonization <li>and the uses of peat lands. </ul> <p>In the outside terrain you can see a garden with typical plants of peat regions and several machines to win the peat. As an extra we offer you special limited exhibitions in the gallery. And last but not least, our teahouse is well worth a visit. We offer specialities from the region, i.e. the famous east-frisian tea or buckwheat pancakes.</p> <hr> <h2><img src="hochmoor.jpg" width=333 height=221 hspace=10 vspace=5 border=0 align="left" alt="raised bog in a natural state">Short information about peat lands in this region </h2> <p><i>Left side: A raised bog in its natural state.</i></p> <p>Peat began to form over 8000 - 10000 years ago in Northwest-Germany, after the end of the last Ice Age. There are two main types of peat lands in Northwest-Germany: the fen that shows a great variety of plants and animals and the raised bog that is relatively poor in animal and plant life. It is developed by the sphagnum mosses. </p> <p>Peat consists of 95 % water and is very sour. In these wet soils there is no air. That is the reason why organic substance, mainly existing of residues of plants, can not be reduced completely like in other soils. It begins to pile up and after years the peat layer is developed. In a raised bog there is only 1 mm of peat formed in every year. A peat layer of two meters shows 2000 years of history. Here the bog has built up layers more than 7 meters in depth on several places. In this region which is a part of Niedersachsen you find the largest peat lands of whole Germany.</p> <p><img src="wagen.jpg" width=360 height=202 hspace=10 vspace=5 border=0 align="right" alt="replica of an old wagon "><i>The picture shows a model of an old wagon which was used in this area around 700 B.C.</i></p> <p>In the peat layers people have found many things that had fallen down onto the surface of the raised bogs and were trapped and preserved. So the peat tells us a long history. In the peat we find remained pollen from plants and trees, wood from fallen trees, and utensils from people, for example tools, pieces from old carts and even the people themselves. There are different methods to judge the age of the findings.</p><br clear="all"> <hr> <p><img src="libelle.jpg" width=300 height=203 hspace=10 vspace=5 border=0 align="left" alt="a dragonfly">peat lands are habitats by plants and animals that are adapted to the wet, acidic and nutrient poor conditions. For example, the sundew needs insects to cover his requirement of nitrogen. The dominant vegetation types of the peat lands are heathers, like bell heather and ling heather, and the mosses (Sphagnum). Common plants of the bog are also the grass molinia and the bog cotton. Rarer species are for example orchids and bog asphodel. These plants are protected. </p> <p>The bird life of the bogs is very multifarious. There are many song-birds like meadow pipits, stonechats, and snipe-birds like the snike and also some coastal birds like the golden plover. Sometimes you see birds of prey and occasionally mammals like foxes, hares, and rabbits which make a visit in the bog. </p><p><i>Picture: Dragonflies are the most conspicuous insects in the bog.</i></p> <p>Today there are only small parts of places with bogs and also fens. The living space of animal life is restricted. The largest parts of these last spaces are now conservation areas. After having stopped the digging of peat they try to bring back the moisture. Then it will be a region for the nature again, and with that there may be a possibility to get new raised bogs. But there is no success until now.</p> <hr> <p><img src="kate.jpg" width=390 height=286 border=0 align="right" alt="replica of a peat hut"><i>On the right side you see a replica of the bog-hut, the place where the fen-settlers had to live (often for many years) before they could afford to build brick houses.</i></p> <p>In the last century there was a big change in the landscape of the peat lands. How did it occur? People needed more space to live. They drained, settled and cultivated the peat land. The oldest method to cultivate the land was the peatburning-culture. The people burned down the drained bogs and sowed out buckwheat. It was followed by the cultivation method called the fen-culture. Following the example of the Netherlands they drained the bogs systematically by building canals. Elisabethfehn is a place founded using this model. And after the discovery of artificial manure the cultivation with the German bog-culture followed. Also big parts of peat lands were and are today dug up with huge ploughs. This method is called the German sandmix culture. </p> <p>The time was very hard and strenuous for the first settlers. The following saying originates from this time: <i>"Dem Ersten sein Tod, dem Zweiten seine Not, dem Dritten sein Brot."</i>- The first his death, the second his need, the third his bread. The first settlers lived in small shanties build from peat. Later they built a firm house in style of the fen-houses.</p> <hr> <p><img src="bagger.jpg" width=398 height=256 hspace=10 vspace=5 border=0 align="left" alt="big machines dig the peat">In the last centuries until the middle of this century the people used the peat as burning material to heat their houses. First they dug by hand. With the beginning of the 20th century and the industrial revolution the work became easier with the help of machines. Today the largest part of the dug peat is worked for the garden-industry and for hobby-gardeners. A small part is needed in the medicine and 20 % to produce active-coal which is used by environmentalists to filter water.</p><p><i>The picture shows a machine for cutting black turf.</i></p><br clear="all"> <hr> <p>If you have read until here, you might be interested in reading more about bogs, fens and peat. We have collected a number of <a href="links.htm">links</a>, many of them in English, for further information. Anyway we would be happy to see you in Elisabethfehn someday. Thank you for your interest.</p> <hr> <TABLE ALIGN="center" BGCOLOR="#EFE4A5" WIDTH="33%" CELLSPACING="1" CELLPADDING="5" BORDER="1"> <TR> <TD><A HREF="index.htm"><IMG SRC="but_home.gif" WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=60 BORDER=0 ALT="the homepage button" ALIGN="left"><B>Startseite<br>German Homepage</B></A></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <HR> <CENTER><H3>Moor- und Fehnmuseum Elisabethfehn * Oldenburger Str 1 * D-26676 Elisabethfehn</H3>email: <A HREF="mailto:moor.und.fehnmuseum@freepage.de">moor.und.fehnmuseum@freepage.de</A> * telephone: +49 - 44 99 - 22 22 * fax: +49 - 44 99 - 7 44 77</CENTER> <HR> <A HREF="http://www.anybrowser.org"><IMG SRC="starsbtn.gif" WIDTH=157 HEIGHT=41 BORDER=0 ALIGN="right" ALT="Campaign for a browser-independent HTML"></A> <SMALL>pages created by Internet-Service <A HREF="mailto:martin.bobbert@earthling.net">Martin Bobbert</A><BR>last update: Montag, 18. Mai 1998.</SMALL><BR CLEAR=ALL> <HR> </BODY> </HTML>