Samso

Samso sits in the middle of the Kattegat between Jutland and Zealand, a farming island of about four thousand people, and in 1997 it won a government competition to become a model renewable energy community. Over the following decade islanders financed and built eleven onshore and ten offshore wind turbines, largely through local cooperatives and shares, along with district heating plants burning straw and woodchip, and by the mid-2000s the island was producing more renewable energy than it consumed. An energy academy in Ballen explains the project, which has been studied by visitors from around the world. Beyond that, Samso is a quiet island of small villages, a stretch of hilly north end, good beaches and early potatoes that command a premium in Danish shops.

History

People have lived and hunted on Samsø since the ice retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, and the island became an island about 9,000 years ago; dolmens, burial mounds, passage graves and kitchen middens survive, and excavations at Tønnesminde and Endebjerg show settlement from the Stone Age to the Viking Age. In 726-729 the Kanhave canal, about 500 m long and 11 m wide, was dug across the island's narrowest point and lined with timber, one of the largest known engineering works of the period and a sign of centralised power over the Kattegat. In the Middle Ages the island belonged to the crown and five fortresses were built on it, Vesborg, Gammel Brattingsborg, Hjortholm, Bisgård and Blafferholm, of which only castle mounds and excavated foundations remain. From 1831 to 1857 ships with plague or cholera on board had to dock at the quarantine station on the islet of Kyholm, where a cemetery of some 100 graves survives. In 1997 Samsø won a government competition to become a model renewable energy community, and all its electricity now comes from wind power and biomass (Wikipedia, Samsø).

Highlights

• Community-owned wind turbines - financed by islanders through cooperatives.
• The energy academy - the project explained where it happened.
• Samso potatoes - the early crop the island is known for.
• The hilly northern end - Nordby and its old village among the ridges.

When to go

May to September for the beaches and full opening; ferries run year round but island services thin in winter. Two days. Cycling suits the scale. Summer is busy with Danish families.

Good to know

Ferry bookings for cars fill in summer and must be made ahead. The island is quiet to the point of empty out of season. The energy story is genuinely interesting but there is not a great deal to see of it beyond turbines and a visitor centre. Accommodation is limited.

Nearby

Hou and Kalundborg are the mainland ferry ports on either side.

Key facts