A Place for the Heathlands

Kongenshus Heath is one of the most famous of the remaining dry inland heaths in Jutland. Its significance lies not only in its size, which stands in stark contrast to the increasingly fragmented patches of heathland scattered across Jutland, but also in its role as a living exhibition of the cultural history and the radical destruction of these landscapes. It is a historic fact, that the widespread drainage of these wetlands, the planting of monocultures, and the depletion of heathland through overgrazing and agricultural intensification caused irreversible ecological damage.^{1 ( 1 )}
Madsen 2017. At the same time, these actions disrupted traditional, sustainable land-use practices that had shaped the region’s cultural identity for centuries. This dual destruction – ecological and cultural – remains an ongoing tension in the management of heathlands today.

On a summer’s day, the scenery at Kongenshus can feel almost too idyllic. As the flat landscape unfolds before you, the wind brushes your face, carrying a distinctive, spicy scent. Grazing sheep wander across the heath, while a gravel road cuts through the heather-covered landscape (Fig. 1). The heath leaves a strong impression as you gaze out over the vast, open fields (Fig. 2).

No longer directly connected to the human practices that once ensured the continuous rejuvenation of the heather, the current caretaking regimes at Kongenshus Heath seek to mimic these practices through controlled burning and sheep grazing. The heath has been under protection since 1943, a status supported by national nature conservation laws and EU biodiversity programmes like Natura2000, which help ensure its continued maintenance.

Today, the area is preserved by HedeDanmark, an independent institution under the Heath Society, which also owns the land. The establishment of a memorial park here serves to commemorate the historical forces still shaping this landscape. While the Heath Society once led the effort to reclaim the heathlands, it has now shifted focus towards a biodiversity-driven approach, as evidenced both by insights gathered during my fieldwork in 2021 and by press material on their web page.^{2 ( 2 )}
Hedeselskabet.dk (https://www.hedeselskabet.dk/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAu8W6BhC-ARIsACEQoDA2zpzNK8_pwMohv4SWxqmWTBSWMk5hXqvConve0sWxqEhZFIN7JLoaAtFREALw_wcB) This shift highlights a notable gap between the extractive efforts of the past and the Society’s current conservation efforts. Critics who I encountered during my fieldwork argued that the Heath Society’s former practices, which emphasized extensive reclamation for agricultural use, were extractivist in nature, prioritizing economic gain over the ecological integrity of the heathlands.

Before venturing onto the gravel road that leads deeper into the heath, visitors explore a small exhibition detailing the past inhabitants of the heathlands. Flyers are also available, describing both the natural and cultural history of the landscape. The flyers highlight that Kongenshus is one of the largest conserved dry inland heaths in Denmark, and explain how an interplay between human agricultural practices and specific geological features, such as nutrient-poor soils, shaped the region’s heathland. The flyers tell about the specific heath geology, flora, and fauna, and perhaps most importantly, you can read about how the heaths were reclaimed and turned into agricultural fields in just a few decades, beginning with the Heath Society’s reclamation efforts from 1866 onwards.^{3 ( 3 )}
Viborg.dk Kongenshus (https://viborg.dk/media/02zkcuof/folderen-kongenshus-mindepark.pdf); Viborg.dk Alheden (https://viborg.dk/media/jxiajuf3/folderen-alheden.pdf).

The cultural history of Kongenshus is also rooted in one of the earliest and most famous attempts at heath reclamation. In the 1750s, several small-scale efforts were made to tame the heathlands, which in the eyes of the Danish state were non-modernized – including the heath’s inhabitants. The heaths stood in opposition to the national state’s aim for economic prosperity and the delivery of timber for both fuel and warfare. Even if the heaths served as royal hunting fields, unlocking the agricultural potential of such vast areas was seen as a way to bring both the state and the heath peasants into a more developed state.^{4 ( 4 )}
Olwig 1984.

The Danish state funded various efforts and experiments that examined how the heathlands could be cultivated. However, the heaths turned out to be more stubborn than expected. Officer Ludwig von Kahlen stood in the lead of a grandiose project in 1754, when he built a small house at the heath, Kongenshus, after which the area is now named. In 1758 he even brought in German colonists, promising them free land if they could cultivate the heath and make it productive.^{5 ( 5 )}
Pyne 1997, 172. But the first attempts failed miserably when the Germans saw the soil conditions. The heath at Kongenshus is both dry and nutrient-poor, and the soil is rock-solid in places. Appalled by these conditions, the Germans complained that they had been tricked into the project, and von Kahlen had to hire guards to keep them from leaving. This history is often referred to among my informants, but also in the flyers available on the heath.^{6 ( 6 )}
Viborg.dk Kongenshus (https://viborg.dk/media/02zkcuof/folderen-kongenshus-mindepark.pdf); Viborg.dk Alheden (https://viborg.dk/media/jxiajuf3/folderen-alheden.pdf). The conquest of the heaths escalated with the formation of the Heath Society in 1866, as the Danish landowner and forester Enrico Dalgas led the great heath reclamation.

The cultural history of the Danish heathlands is strongly intertwined with depictions in literature and art in which Kongenshus plays a significant role. As the literary scholar Johs. Frandsen suggests, Danish authors have long linked the heaths to a poetic and mythologized past, with the landscapes representing the ancient and the pristine. Frandsen argues that Kongenshus Heath serves as a place of what he refers to as literary inheritance:

When the great Danish writers on the heath like Jeppe Aakjær, Steen Steensen Blicher, and Hans Christian Andersen wrote about the heath – its nature, its inhabitants, and the loss of it all – they created a special place in the Danish imagination, Frandsen argues. A mythologized place:

For Frandsen, the living heath at Kongenshus serves as a source for visitors to revisit the inheritance passed on by the heath authors of the past. As a sidenote, I discussed my fieldwork with Professor Emeritus Frandsen, who contributed greatly to my knowledge about the heath authors through conversations and interviews.

Kongenshus has continued to inspire contemporary literature and arts, extending its cultural significance into the present. In 2020, author Ida Jessen published a fictionalized novel centred on the historical events of Ludvig von Kahlen and the first heath reclamation. The book is called Kaptajnen & Ann Barbara.^{9 ( 9 )}
Jessen 2020. This story was further brought to life in 2023 with the release of the film Bastarden, starring the Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen as von Kahlen. The film, adapted from Jessen’s book, was a major success in Danish cinemas, featuring local people as extras in several scenes. Both the novel and the movie have reportedly increased visitor numbers at Kongenhus, as people seek out the remnants of the house once built by von Kahlen. On the heath, it is common to overhear visitors discussing the book or the film, further illustrating how Kongenshus remains a vital site in Denmark’s cultural imagination – both in historical and contemporary contexts.

Walking further into the heath along the gravel road, visitors encounter a striking wooden structure that serves both as a recreational space and as a watchtower. Beneath the structure, benches and tables provide space to enjoy packed lunches, while the staircase offers panoramic views of the heath. Surrounding the benches are information boards that recount the heath’s history, capturing the attention of curious visitors.

Though its role as a memorial park might seem to suggest a clear-cut presentation of the past, I argue that Kongenshus reveals a more nuanced and contradictory relationship between history and the present. On the various information boards placed around the heath, the narrative shifts between celebrating the Heath Society’s reclamation efforts, romanticizing the lives of the past inhabitants, and mourning the heath’s radical destruction. The narrative includes the story of the heaths and their inhabitants were developed into a modernized state through the great heath reclamation, but it also includes short passages about the people of west Jutland who mourned the loss of certain animal and plant species, as a statement of how radical the destruction of the heaths was. The park seems, in parallel, to mourn the loss of the heath, celebrate the changes, and conjure up vivid imaginaries of the impoverished inhabitants of the past. Empirically, this suggests a somewhat messy and unstructured re-emergence of the past, rather than the straightforward idea of literary inheritance suggested by Frandsen.^{10 ( 10 )}
Frandsen 2016.

The complexities of Kongenshus’s past are further highlighted by the contrasting ways the landscape was managed before it became officially protected in 1943. A striking example is the introduction of a Sámi family and their reindeer herd to the heath in 1913. This initiative served a dual purpose as an attempt to export reindeer and a way to reinforce the imagery of the heathlands as wild, pristine, authentic landscapes. Visitors to the park could observe the reindeer herd and visit the Sámi family, who lived in an “authentic” lavvu on the heath. However, as disease spread in the reindeer herd shortly after this setup was created, the project ended abruptly ten years after its inception.^{11 ( 11 )}
The introduction of a Sámi family and reindeer herd to Kongenshus in 1913 reflects a colonial mindset that romanticized indigenous practices while exoticizing their culture for public display. Such practices were part of broader European trends in the early twentieth century, where “ethnographic exhibitions” often presented indigenous peoples in contrived, stereotypical settings. These exhibitions framed non-European or minority cultures as both “authentic” and “primitive,” aligning with narratives of cultural superiority and national identity. At Kongenshus, the Sámi family and their reindeer were likely intended to evoke an idealized version of the heathlands as “pristine wilderness,” reinforcing the heaths’ aesthetic and cultural significance while obscuring the exploitative underpinnings of such displays. The juxtaposition of the heath as a supposedly untouched wilderness similar to Sámi landscapes with the concurrent celebration of its “conquest” and transformation into cultivated land presents a striking contradiction even within the historical archives.

At Mindedalen (the memorial valley), located along a wide path near the watchtower, the Heath Society’s celebration of its reclamation efforts is further on display. Here, large memorial stones line the road (Fig. 3). At first glance, these might look like ordinary commemorative stones, but a closer look unfolds the histories and ideologies that formed the foundation for the reworking of Jutland from heathlands into modernized agriculture. Each stone represents a different Jutland shire, often symbolized with figures, symbols, or poetry specific to the area. The stones also contain a peculiar detail: the inclusion of circular diagrams. These diagrams illustrate the proportions of forests, agriculture, and heath in 1850 compared to 1950 – before and after the heath reclamation. “H” denotes heathland, lines signify agricultural fields, and crosses represent forests – visually encapsulating the dramatic shifts in land use over a century.

At first glance, statistical depictions of the heath project (hedesagen) may seem incongruous in such a picturesque and park-like setting. Yet these diagrams vividly encapsulate the scientific rationale behind the Heath Society’s transformation of the Danish landscape. They tell the story of how human ambition overcame the “useless” nature that the Danish state in Copenhagen once considered the heathlands to be.

Kongenshus and Mindedalen reek of the entrepreneurial spirit, masculine power, and the so-called human conquest of nature. This theme is further accentuated as you follow the Mindedalen path downhill to Mødepladsen (the meeting place, Fig. 5). Here, the founders and key figures of the heath are celebrated. Among the names engraved and commemorated are Enrico Mylius Dalgas, the Society’s founder, his collaborator P. P. C. Ferdinand Mourier-Petersen, and later figures such as Niels Basse. The latter, according to the myth retold among visitors with special knowledge of Kongenshus’s history, bought the land at Kongenshus right in front of the German forces during the second world war, thwarting plans to convert it into an airfield. Additionally, the stones honour the great heathland poets and painters, including Steen Steensen Blicher. As a poet, priest, and agriculturalist, Blicher played a pivotal role in introducing the Danish public to the heathlands as evocative images of wilderness through his writing.^{12 ( 12 )}
Frandsen 2016.

It is difficult to pinpoint whether Kongenshus serves as a cemetery for the lost heathlands and their associated cultures, a recreational park, a museum celebrating heath reclamation – or perhaps something quite in between. The past resurfaces here in layered and uneasy ways, as exemplified by the newest addition at Mødepladsen, a memorial stone dedicated to the Danish historian and heath poet, Jeppe Aakjær (Fig. 6). The stone bears the inscription,

While the placement of the memorial stone alongside prominent members of the Heath Society may appear neutral, those familiar with the intricacies of Danish heath history recognize its controversial nature. Aakjær was a vocal critic of the Heath Society’s practices, making the decision to commemorate him in this context a striking paradox. This juxtaposition exemplifies the complex and, at times, contradictory efforts to memorialize the past at Kongenshus. I now turn to explore the historical tensions between Aakjær and the Heath Society in greater detail.

Jeppe Aakjær (1866–1930) was born and raised in west Jutland and had a strong connection to the surrounding heath landscape. Coincidentally, he was born in the same year as the Heath Society, in 1866. Despite this shared starting point, their perspectives diverged sharply. Looking back into the historical archives, Aakjær’s texts often advocate for nature conservation, critiquing the radical reclamation of nature, especially in Jutland. In 1909, Aakjær gave a speech at a public meeting which was re-published and reprinted many times, and as recently as 2017.^{13 ( 13 )}
Aakjær 2017. Here, we are introduced to the multifaceted critique Aakjær levelled against the Heath Society. Drawing on contemporary conservation movements, Aakjær praised the principles of preservation, but heavily critiqued the antithesis to that perspective: namely, the Heath Society. It is important to note that conservation movements had not yet secured a foothold in Denmark in these years: the Heath Society was free to reclaim the heathlands and replace them with pine and fields. Aakjær expressed his critique with poignant sarcasm:

Aakjær’s criticism extended beyond nature conservation to the cultural ramifications of the Heath Society’s actions. He was mourning not only the loss of the landscape, but also the erosion of the identity of the people of west Jutland, whose lives and traditions had been shaped over millennia by the heathlands.

In his speech, Aakjær continues:

One key aspect of Aakjær’s critique of the Heath Society was its failure to protect the heaths both as natural environments and as aesthetic landscapes. However, it would be reductive to label Aakjær merely as a national romantic. While he was first and foremost a poet, Aakjær also spent hours on hours conducting archival research on the heathlands. He described in his writings not only the distinct, desert-like qualities of the Danish heaths, but the lives of their inhabitants, often reflecting the themes of his predecessor, Steen Steensen Blicher, who influenced him deeply. Blicher’s own depictions of the heathlands, particularly in his short stories such as E Bindstouw and Præsten i Vejlby, explored the harshness of life on the heaths, the isolation of their communities, and their stark and unforgiving beauty, offering a literary foundation for later critiques and celebrations of these landscapes.

While the Heath Society and the heath project were celebrated by Denmark’s elite for transforming impoverished heath peasants into symbols of modernity, Aakjær denounced their efforts. Inspired by Darwinist theories, Aakjær viewed the heathlands as a uniquely resilient ecosystem, intricately tied to its human inhabitants, who had adapted to these conditions over thousands of years. The bodies of the heath peasants had been formed and shaped to live and breathe in these surroundings. Aakjær argued that reclamation of the heaths would lead not only to the destruction of this specific heath nature, but also to the disappearance, sooner or later, of the people who had adapted to these ecologies. For Aakjær, this would be an irreplaceable cultural and ecological loss for Denmark. His Darwinist influences are evident in his 1909 speech, in which he compares the Heath Society to rigid religious groups, which he portrayed as unyielding and destructive:

Later in the speech, Aakjær contrasts two types of people shaped by the distinct natural environments of Denmark, highlighting his Darwinist belief that humans are fundamentally influenced by the landscapes surrounding them. He juxtaposes the expansive, open vistas of the western Jutland heaths with the more enclosed, forested areas of eastern Denmark:

But Aakjær’s critique extended beyond cultural and aesthetic observations to address issues of social justice. He argued that the nutrient-poor soils of western Jutland were ill suited to agriculture and that the region’s inhabitants were significantly poorer than the affluent and propertied landowners of the east, who often controlled vast tracts of nutritious soils. Instead of transforming the cherished heathlands in the west, why not redistribute money and resources from the east, was one of Aakjær’s main ideas in his speech.

A committed social democrat, Aakjær fiercely opposed the liberal agenda of the Heath Society. His disdain was further fuelled by the fact that the Society was led and financed by affluent individuals from Copenhagen – something that indeed did little to endear it to the hard-working communities of western Jutland. Aakjær’s sharp critique is once again evident in his speech:

Aakjær’s criticism of the Heath Society spanned aesthetics, culture, and social justice. His challenge to its legacy proved to be wide-ranging and enduring. With the placement of Aakjær’s commemorative stone in 2016, the Heath Society sought to signal a shift in its stance on this historical conflict. As one of its foresters explained during an interview conducted by me, the Society’s contemporary vision of protecting and restoring nature can now perhaps be aligned with Aakjær’s ideals through a modern focus on biodiversity.

The stone therefore serves as a gesture of reconciliation, seeking to reinterpret the past. It is an attempt to let Aakjær’s haunting presence settle and to bridge the paradoxical divide between the Society’s destructive history and its present-day efforts in ecological restoration. Yet this gesture is not without controversy. A local heath enthusiast strongly opposes the placement of the stone and the narrative it embodies. I now turn to this perspective, bringing the reader with me on a walk at Kongenshus with two local activists, Jens and Ellen.

“We need to roam beyond the paths,” Jens exclaims. “This is what you do on the heaths,” his wife Ellen adds, as we stepped through the dense heather at Kongenshus Heath, heather that nearly reaches our knees. Jens remarks on the condition of the heather, which he feels look unhealthy in this area. Even at this early stage of our walk, it’s clear that this place and its condition holds deep significance for Jens.

As a couple nearing retirement, Jens and Ellen dedicate much of their time to advocating against political decisions that threaten vulnerable natural areas, such as the proposed construction of new highways. Ellen applies her mathematical expertise to challenging the calculations underpinning these projects. She has even secured a meeting with the Danish minister of transport to present her findings. Both Jens and Ellen have a long-standing connection with the heath: they previously worked for the Heath Society, and they have been frequent visitors to different heath landscapes throughout their lives. On the heath they hike, enjoy the peace and tranquillity, and pick berries to make jam. But it is also a political battleground– particularly to Jens.

When we strayed from the paths, we briefly got lost, as often on the heath. The uniform carpets of heather and the flat horizon create a very disorienting experience, even for those who know the landscape. “This is part of the experience of walking on the heath,” Ellen remarks, before sharing memories tied to the landscape. Ellen is originally from Zealand – a detail slightly audible in her dialect – but spent many childhood summers in Jutland, and subsequently made it her home. “When I hear the lark singing here, I think of freedom and all the happy childhood memories on the heaths,” she says, almost echoing Aakjær’s writing, in which childhood memories of the heath are a recurring theme.

Gradually we reclaimed our orientation in the landscape. The path led us along a stream, where Jens pointed out the different flight patterns of various birds and introduced me to a few plants that could be used to make good snaps, a Danish spirit often infused with herbs and other plants. I had been letting Jens and Ellen lead the way, but I began to suspect that we were nearing the place that might hold the deepest significance for Jens at Kongenshus Heath: Mødepladsen, the meeting place, with the Aakjær stone. But rather than taking the celebratory route through Mindedalen, its stones commemorating the reclamation of the heaths, we followed another path, approaching Mødepladsen from the opposite side. How symbolic, I thought with a slight smile, reflecting on how I had first learned about Jens.

Early in my research, I had come across Jens’s public critiques of the Heath Society, published in both a newspaper article and on websites.^{19 ( 19 )}
Frydendal 2020a; 2020b. In these pieces, he refers to a specific law protecting artists’ works from being used in ways misaligned with their original intentions. Jens argued that this law was violated by the placement of the Aakjær stone. He argued that the quote engraved on the stone had been misinterpreted: it can be read as a praise for heath cultivation, Jens asserted, but this interpretation is entirely incorrect. Jens argues that when Aakjær wrote, “bread shall you get from the good deep soil” he was referring to the rich landowners and their fertile soils in eastern Denmark, not the sandy, nutrient-poor soils of western Jutland, where you instead will find serenity and wide view over the heath.

Jens’s familiarity with Aakjær’s work and his nuanced understanding of the poet’s critique was evident. His opposition to the Heath Society continues. He echoes Aakjær’s sharp tone commenting on a press release announcing the placement of the stone in 2016. The Heath Society wrote:

In Jens’s view, one would have to search far and wide to find a comparable assassination of Aakjær’s legacy. He seeks to unmute Aakjær’s now silenced voice as he argues that the Heath Society is deliberately seeking to suppress the poet’s critique with their own narrative of inheritance at Mødepladsen. This tension made me particularly keen to get to the stone on our walks. As expected, Jens’s dissatisfaction with the stone resurfaced the moment we stood before it.

For Jens, the issue is not just the stone itself, but its placement – which in his view necessitates activist opposition. Jens resists the Heath Society’s attempts to reconcile their destructive past with their present-day focus on biodiversity. For him, the stone represents an effort to erase historical injustices: not only those inflicted on the distinctive heathlands and their unique ecology, but also on Aakjær’s literary legacy. As we talk, this becomes more and more evident:

In this exchange with Jens, it becomes evident that, despite Aakjær’s death in 1930, he still has a concrete and yet haunting presence in the landscape for Jens – manifesting almost as a spectre, in wanted or unwanted ways, through the different placements of the stone. Jens’s proposed new placement of the stone, with Aakjær gazing out over his beloved heath, enhances this connection. It is not merely symbolic, but deeply tied to how the landscape is physically structured and commemorated. For Jens, reconfiguring the landscape at Mødepladsen is a way of grappling with suppressed histories and silenced voices. According to him, Aakjær’s critique would be expressed in visible and powerful terms through the intentional placement of the stone at the top of the hill, with an outlook over the heath, differentiating it from the other stones at the bottom. This act would do justice to the loss both of the heathlands and of the characteristic western Jutland cultures, as proposed by Aakjær – but also, too, to the legacy of Aakjær’s literary critique of the Heath Society. The conflict surrounding the stone represents a broader struggle over which narratives are to be voiced or silenced in this landscape. The spectre of the dead poet is actively conjured up in specific ways by different actors.

As Frandsen has suggested, Kongenshus Heath functions as a site of literary inheritance, a “place which tells and retains history.”^{21 ( 21 )}
Frandsen 2016. However, I would argue that this framing presumes a linear narrative of time that sees power dynamics as continuing to shape the unfolding of history in this space. For Jens, the Heath Society seeks to maintain this linear narrative while erasing alternative stories and critiques.

I would like to nuance the notion that Kongenshus Heath is a neat site of literary inheritance. I seek a messier, more uneasy perspective, particularly in relation to the conflict over the Aakjær stone. I draw here on the theories of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, specifically on his concept of the spectre. Derrida introduced this idea to explore how communism continued to haunt the neoliberal world order even after its apparent collapse.^{22 ( 22 )}
Derrida et al. 2006. His theory allows me to underline how past and politics are intertwined, suggesting that historical political struggles persist in the present, manifesting in unexpected ways.

For Derrida, ghosts or spectres are not necessarily scary. Rather,

According to Derrida, these spectres will continuously arise as future potentials

Derrida’s theory provides a lens to understand how the Heath Society’s efforts to reconcile its historical tensions with Aakjær will always be haunted by enthusiasts like Jens. For Derrida, the spectre or ghost disrupts modernist linear notions of time by blurring distinctions between absence and presence, past, present and future, and here and there.^{25 ( 25 )}
Derrida et al. 2006. This disruption challenges the temporal continuity and depoliticization inherent in normative views of inheritance. Although Aakjær is no longer physically present, his spectre will continue to demand ethical action for those engaged with his literary inheritance and also with the legacy of the heaths in general. Attempts to smooth over these legacies, like as the Heath Society’s placement of the memorial stone, will not remove the spectres. Even if the placement of the memorial stone might have been an attempt to indirectly silence past conflicts, they will continue to resurface in the discussion of the heathland inheritance in Denmark.

Using Derrida’s theory as a framework, I consider how the spatial configurations and placements of material objects like the memorial stone shape spectral appearances and make it possible for historical narratives to surface. In this context, Aakjær’s ghost may be not singular but manifold, with at least two spectres emerging from competing interpretations of his legacy. The politics of Kongenshus centres on how materials such as a memorial stone can foster the emergence of ghosts in different ways. Certain conjurings either silence or give voice to the various perspectives of the often-paradoxical inheritance at Kongenshus Heath, requiring different types of actions.

My case here shows that the Danish dry inland heaths with their literary legacy will remain relevant to those engaged in the conservation and history of these unique ecologies. These histories are not solely concerned with the sheer natural history of the heathlands; they are intertwined with cultural and ideological conflicts regarding relationships between humanity and nature. As such, inheritance at Kongenshus does not easily stabilize. Various actors must grapple with the spectres of the past.

As our interview comes to an end, Ellen, Jens, and I walk up along the shire stones of Mindedalen to the end of the valley. There, a sturdy metal chain has been placed to prevent cars driving down towards Mødepladsen. Jens checks to see if the chain is removable. It is. I notice a small smile on his face. I can’t quite tell whether Jens is joking, but it’s obvious that a possible political act of resistance continues to haunt the legacy at Kongenshus.