What does river Meuse see? Let’s step into a small boat to get a glimpse.
Saint Servatius
Aw brögk. It used to be Maastricht’s one and only bridge. But that was long ago.
In the 1930s, a spectacular photo was taken of this bridge. The arches on the left bank (seen from the river) within a split second crumbled into dust. The image captures exactly that fraction of a second, showing us the leaping dust as a fan of debris.
A lock or — what kind of structure is that?
Looking left from the Maaswachter’s House, staring out over the river (called Smeermaas —a gunky, peanut-buttery name for such a serene, beautiful stretch of river), in the distance you’ll see a — what is it? — tall hook; a white stone slab rising hundreds of metres high. I studied it through binoculars. A waterfall? Is water forcing its way down a long line through a horizontal slit? Reading this one book about the Meuse* offers many juicy facts, but none that could help here**, so the mystery remains unsolved to this day.
* The Meuse: From River to System. The History of the Waterways between Liège and the Delta by Renske van der Hoek.
** The irrelevant facts: Rotterdam calls itself Meuse City (including its beloved ‘Manhattan at the Meuse’), but technically it’s the Rhine that runs through it. Maassluis, however, does live up to it’s name. It really does lock the Muese; In northern France there’s a village called Meuse; In the 1980s, the “Kollektief Rampenplan” (Disaster Plan collective) sold bottles labeled “Water, taken from the river Meuse — it glows in the dark!” because the water was so polluted; Pollution is still an issue. There are photos to be found in archives of the river surface covered in a thick, foamy layer — the dense, clotted kind; Part of the Servatius Bridge was blown up to make room for larger ships (this was mentioned above); On June 17, 1942, a ship rammed the rear gates while entering a lock on the Meuse. It plunged seven metres down, along with three other vessels.
Those who would want to take a closer look at that slab above the water can become a Maaswatcher. This involves you staying in a Watcher’s House and spending your days being with the river. Maaswacht is part of Maaslab, an initiative by TAAT. Every day for a year, someone keeps watch by the river.