Durgerdam, Amsterdam

Durgerdam is a village strung along the dyke beside the IJmeer, about 7 km east of Amsterdam’s city centre. The dyke is more than a route through the settlement: it marks the setting of a community shaped by water. During the severe winter of 1849, fishermen Klaas Bording and his sons drifted away from shore on an ice floe while fishing.

They survived for about fourteen days by eating the fish they had caught, until rescuers reached them near Vollenhove on 27 January. Only Jacob, the younger son, lived through the ordeal. As you take in the houses and the long raised line of the dyke, that extraordinary episode gives this quiet village a stark human story: the water that supported local livelihoods could also carry people far beyond sight of land.