Moor- und Fehnmuseum Elisabethfehn

The Moor and Fehn Museum stands beside the Elisabethfehn Canal in the once-wild Ostermoore, now largely drained farmland. It occupies an 1896 canal-keeper’s house and a modern Fehn house built in 1993. The site covers 15 000 m² and shows how peat cutting shaped the landscape and people’s lives.

Founded in 1986 by Gustav Schünemann, the museum keeps old peat-cutting machines and tells the story of moorland settlement. A highlight is the Boy from Burlage, a 12–14-year-old Iron-Age bog body found near Rhauderfehn. Visitors also see a living high and low bog, peat gauges, a reconstructed plank path and a full-size white-peat factory.

Outside, a peat-garden displays more than ninety typical bog plants. Inside, models explain moor types and archaeology while a narrow-gauge steam engine and a 1904 locomobile stand ready. Three historic vessels—the iron tjalk Jantina, the wooden muttschip Johanna and a small pogge—float nearby. Monthly baking in a stone oven adds a scent of rye bread to the air.