Meeting peacefully at a standstill on formerly unstable ground, the sand dunes of the Hoge Veluwe National Park have come to be from scores of drift sand emerging from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean and, over several millennia, finding their place within the former marshes of what is now the Netherlands. Sediments have layered to form coastal barrier systems, gradually blocking away the tremendous force of the very ocean waves that retrieved them from the ocean’s bottom and strengthened them into self-defending masses. Forming a delta that now protrudes into the North Sea, adorned with a series of islands, the drift sands have for centuries incidentally acted as a natural water defence system, reinforcing the low-lying country as dry land while it precariously sits five metres below sea level. These sands set the ground for a task that we humans would take upon ourselves in a process we’ve called ‘land reclamation,’ draining the bog and planting trees in its place, forming a landscape custom-fitted to our needs.
