Qualla: Samsø https://qualla.com/sams en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:42:17 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Samsø https://qualla.com/sams Samsø: Introduction https://qualla.com/sams/ Photo credit LineNoelle, CC BY-SA 4.0. Thirteen centuries before Samsø learned to make its own electricity, the people living here dug a canal straight through the island. The Kanhave canal was cut between 726 and 729 AD at the island's narrowest point — roughly 500 metres long, 11 metres wide, clad with wooden linings, deep enough for vessels drawing a metre of water. It is among the largest engineering works the Vikings are known to have attempted, and it existed for one reason: whoever held Samsø held the Kattegat. The island has been rearranging itself to suit the age ever since.

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Image: LineNoelle | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/u1zt-sams-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Samsø: A Cut Through the Middle https://qualla.com/sams/ Photo credit Villy Fink Isaksen, CC BY-SA 3.0. That canal still marks the island's central seam. North of it, the ground is sand and gravel dropped by retreating ice; south of it lie boulder clay and outwash plains, which is why the north feels wilder — wavy meadows, patches of woodland, scraps of heath. The coastline runs to...

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Image: Villy Fink Isaksen | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/u1zt-sams-a-cut-through-the-middle.mp3 0:06 2 full Samsø: Berserkers in the Burial Mounds https://qualla.com/sams/ Photo credit Mårten Eskil Winge, Public domain. People have hunted here since the ice let go. Samsø became an island roughly 9,000 years ago, and the landscape is stitched with dolmens, passage graves, burial mounds and kitchen middens; excavations at Tønnesminde and Endebjerg turned up habitation running from the Stone Age th...

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Image: Mårten Eskil Winge | Public domain

]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/u1zt-sams-berserkers-in-the-burial-mounds.mp3 0:06 3 full Samsø: Five Fortresses, None Left Standing https://qualla.com/sams/ Photo credit Fotolitograferede i Generalstabens Topografiske Afdeling, Public domain. Through the Middle Ages the island belonged to the Crown, and the Crown fortified it heavily: Vesborg, where the lighthouse now stands; Gammel Brattingsborg, under the present town of Tranebjerg; Hjortholm on its islet in Stavns Fjord; Bisgård at the bishop's residence in Onsbjer...

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Image: Fotolitograferede i Generalstabens Topografiske Afdeling | Public domain

]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/u1zt-sams-five-fortresses-none-left-standing.mp3 0:06 4 full Samsø: The Island That Rewired Itself https://qualla.com/sams/ Photo credit DirectorOlav, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1997 Samsø won a Danish government competition to become a model renewable energy community. At the time it burned oil and coal, all of it shipped in from the mainland. Eleven onshore wind turbines went up, the first feeding the grid in 2000, and ten offshore turbines followed...

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Image: DirectorOlav | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/u1zt-sams-the-island-that-rewired-itself.mp3 0:06 5 full Samsø: The Price of the First Potatoes https://qualla.com/sams/ Photo credit Henrik Hansen, CC BY-SA 4.0. Farming has shaped Samsø for millennia, and nearly the whole island is cultivated landscape. Close to 16% of islanders work in farming or fishing, against 3.5% nationally. Free-range production dominates, mostly potatoes, vegetables and berries, and through the 2000s more of the ...

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Image: Henrik Hansen | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/z/t/sams-wp/u1zt-sams-the-price-of-the-first-potatoes.mp3 0:06 6 full