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Stories from the sea
By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: Strandingsmuseum St George
On Christmas Eve 1811, the British royal navy ships HMS St George and HMS Defence were wrecked just off western Jutland’s treacherous coast. Only 17 men survived – more than 1,300 others drowned and were buried in Thorsminde’s sandy dunes, still today known as the Dead Men’s Dunes. The nearby Strandingsmuseum St George tells the tragic stories of the region’s many wrecks, but also that of the resilient people who made the coast their home. “We like to say that our exhibitions are curated by the sea,” says Ingeborg Svennevig, director of the region’s cultural history museums. “It has been a ruthless neighbour for the people living on Jutland’s west coast as well as their greatest source of both income and information for generations. It provided vital resources such as fishing and driftwood, but also an unusual means of communication with the larger world.” The area’s inhabitants were sometimes able to salvage exotic artefacts from unfortunate ships, but it was the interactions with traders and survivors, many of whom were nursed back to health in the local community, that provided some of the most fascinating cultural meetings. As the
famous local author and explorer Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen put it: “We may live a remote life out here in the dunes, but the sea jolly well makes sure we learn everything from the distant regions of the Earth.” The museum opened in 1992 to accommodate a huge joint British-Danish project to salvage the HMS St George and the time capsule-like belongings its seamen left behind. “When we open in early 2018, we’ll have a tower featuring the newly recovered rudder of St George in what we believe is one of the world’s largest display cases,” Svennevig enthuses. “Above the rudder, our guests will have a beautiful view of the Danish West Coast; the very coast where all the stories in the museum took place.”
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