The Leopold Canal – a forgotten treasure

Before I get on to the title of this post, I am pleased to say we've had a change in the weather at last! The two photos below are of the moody skies I saw during my walk with Zoe yesterday morning. Sadly, what looked like rain clouds proved feeble in the extreme and we had a smattering of drips at the most, not even enough to wet the leaves of my hydrangeas, but at least it's cooler, a blessing I never thought I would be relishing.

Spot the flying geese!

By the afternoon, the clouds had blown themselves into oblivion and the sun made a reappearance but thankfully lacking the intensity we've been becoming accustomed to. Without the energy sapping heat to contend with, and with a smidgin of ambition restored, Koos and I (with Zoe, of course) took a short drive over the Flemish border to a place called Boekhoute where we arrived at the beginning of the Leopold canal.

This tiny chapel marks the place where the canal begins.
The sign says "need seeks comfort"

Zoe looking ready to head off along the towpath

This canal is little known as it is not navigable, not these days anyway. It was constructed in the 1840s as a means of draining the Flemish polder lands. Prior to Belgium's independence in 1830, the polders in Flanders drained into the Western Scheldt, but the Dutch were not pleased with losing 30% of their territory to this new country and they closed of the drainage channels, leaving large areas of land swampy and even malarial. The solution Belgium's new government decided on was to construct a canal along the border with the Netherlands, with its mouth at Zeebrugge on the North Sea. It was to be named Leopold after the country's first king, disregarding its real champion, Jozef Andries, who was a member of Belgian's National Congress but was also a parish priest from Middelburg in Zeeland. It was he who initiated and pressed ahead with the plans for the canal.

However, all did not go exactly to plan. The original intention was to connect the North Zea with the great Gent-Terneuzen ship canal at Zelzate, but when in a rare moment of accord, the Dutch and Belgian authorities signed an agreement to allow drainage into the Western Scheldt once more, the last stretch between Boekhoute and Zelzate was abandoned and the Isabella canal was dug in 1920. It crossed the Dutch border into Zeeuws Vlaanderen with its drainage water exiting into the estuary at Braakman, a wide water course that was largely dammed in 1952, although the drainage system remains. 

What we have left is a rather beautiful and very peaceful tree-lined waterway that appears to start randomly in the middle of the Flemish countryside and which runs approximately 45 kilometres almost parallel with the Dutch border until its end between Zeebrugge and Knokke-Heist at the coast. 

That said, the towpath is popular with walkers and I wouldn't mind having a go at hiking its entire length one of these days. I'll probably have to take a little cart for Zoe, though. She's made it quite clear she doesn't do more than around seven kilometres a day and even that's stretching it.

There is a footpath the other side too

The Isabella canal, that side branch leading to the Westerschelde.
Ahead, you can see a pumping station

Wikipedia also tells us that "during WWI, the German occupiers assigned a military role to the canal. Specifically, it played a part in the Hollandstelling, (a German defence line) which, however, never served any military purpose. The last time the canal fulfilled a military function was at the end of WWII.  During the month of October 1944, several Canadian and British divisions fought heavy battles around the canal against the German occupiers in Operation Switchback, who were determined to hold the Scheldt estuary." Sorry for quoting directly from the internet, but their explanation was much better than any paraphrasing I could come up with, and the links are tempting rabbit holes :)

This wasn't the first time we've been to the canal, but we'd never been to its beginning before, so it was quite inspiring to start at the source, so to speak. When the weather's cooler, I might well plan a few long walks and see if I can fulfil that ambition. After all, 45 km is not all that far... is it?

Enjoy the rest of your week, allemaal. Next time I write, I might well be in France!