This Man Made Wooden Shoes for 60 Years

This is Unearthed, and in this immersive documentary we're uncovering the forgotten skills, crafts and knowledge that once shaped everyday life. If that is something you like, please subscribe and consider liking this video so others like yourself can see it. This is the world of the Klompenmacher, and this is the process of turning a living tree into something you can walk in. The poplars are cut in winter, when the sap is low and the wood is more stable. And before any shaping begins, the logs are cut into shorter lengths, each one roughly the length of a wooden shoe. These sections are called bollen, and each bollen contains several shoes hidden inside it, knowing how many is not guesswork. An experienced Klompenmacher can tell almost instantly, simply by looking at the grain, the diameter and the shape of the wood. The first real transformation happens outside the workshop. The bollen is placed upright on a heavy chopping block. There are no measuring tools, no markings. Jakob Hermanns presses his palm against the wood, feeling for the natural lines of the grain. Wood wants to split in certain directions, and if you fight it, you lose material. If you follow it, the wood opens cleanly. With controlled blows, the round section opens into rough segments. Each segment will later become a single wooden shoe. A good split produces almost no waste. A bad one can ruin hours of work in seconds. This step alone tells you how much experience matters. Hermanns can often say, before the first wedge goes in, how many Klompen the log will yield, and even what sizes they will likely be. That knowledge isn't written down anywhere. It lives entirely in the hands and eyes of the maker. Once the log is split, the bark is removed. Bark holds moisture, dirt and insects, and it has no place in a shoe. With quick practiced movements, the outer layer is knocked away, revealing clean poplar underneath. The pieces now resemble oversized wooden blocks, still rough, still shapeless, but already committed to becoming footwear. At this stage, the Klompenmacher begins giving each block a direction. The front and back are defined, the heel and toe are roughly indicated. Left and right shoes are established early, because once material is removed, there's no undoing it. Wooden shoemaking on the Lower Rhine goes back to at least the 16th century. By the early 20th century, it had become a major regional industry. In the years before the Second World War, there were hundreds of Klompen workshops in the Heinsberg area alone. In some villages, nearly every family was involved in the trade in some way. While many Klompenmakers worked purely by hand, some adopted limited mechanisation. Inside his workshop stands a copying machine, built in the 1930s. It was the only major machine he ever relied on, and even then, it didn't replace craftsmanship, it amplified it. The copying machine works on a simple but powerful principle. A rough wooden blank is mounted on one side, a finished wooden model, known as a last, is mounted on the other. The two are mechanically linked so that as they rotate, cutting tools shape the blank to match the model's form exactly. Choosing the right model is crucial. Each one represents a specific shoe size and style. Herman selects the appropriate last and secures it carefully. Once the machine is running, rotating knives gradually shave away the excess wood, revealing the outer shape of the Klompen. But even this machine demands restraint. If the operator applies too much pressure, the wooden model begins to wear down. That would subtly change the shape of every shoe made afterward. To prevent this, Herman's reinforces vulnerable parts of the model with small nails, preserving its form over years of use. If stories like this matter to you, if you believe the knowledge of hands, materials and patience deserves to be remembered, then consider subscribing to Unearthed. Each film is an immersive documentary, uncovering the skills and worlds that quietly built everyday life, and once lost, can never truly be rebuilt. And when this ends, don't let the journey stop here. Watch the next immersive documentary. Another forgotten craft, another human story, another world waiting just beneath the surface. Because once these skills are gone, all we have left is the record. Thank you for being here.