The Netherlands has a record crop of new millers to keep the windmill sails spinning

ZAANDIJK, Netherlands (AP) — A wintry gust of wind raises hopes that the giant sails of a centuries-old windmill near Amsterdam will start turning. On the mill’s cutting floor, six blades briefly rise and fall, sawing into a rough-hewn plank.

But the wind drops and the mill’s sails and saws grind to a halt.

“If the wind doesn’t blow, we’re unemployed,” said Erik d’Ailly, a 69-year-old volunteer miller.

Despite the stop-and-go nature of the work, the age-old craft of harnessing wind power to drain lowlands, saw lumber or grind grain is enjoying a renaissance in the Netherlands, a nation famous for the windmills dotting its landscape. Peter Booij and d’Ailly are part of a record crop of 110 newly qualified millers. The 68-year-old Booij proudly wears his miller’s pin on the green fleece sweater that keeps him warm on the mill’s cutting floor.

It takes two to three years to complete training to work in a windmill, most of it hands-on experience, followed by an exam. Most graduates become volunteers at windmills, which need to keep turning to prevent them falling into disrepair.

“It’s very important to keep the 1,200 mills we still have, and a mill is like a car; it needs to run, it needs to move,” said Nicole Bakker, director of De Hollandsche Molen, a group set up in 1923 to represent the interests of windmills and millers.

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“The miller’s craft is on the list of UNESCO intangible heritage, " she added. “So we want to preserve the craft of the miller, and to preserve the craft we need to preserve the mill.”

This low-lying nation relied for centuries on the power of windmills to drain water away from its swampy land and grind grain into flour. Windmills also sawed wood used in sail ships that plied the world’s oceans and ground spices they carried from Dutch colonies.

Despite more modern technology such as electric pumping stations, many of the windmills are still in use and lend a helping hand shifting water at times of extreme rainfall.

Others are major tourist draw cards. The windmill where Booij and d’Ailly work is on the Zaanse Schans, a heritage area close to Amsterdam where visitors flock to see mills, museums and restored historic houses.

Interest in learning the miller’s craft rose around the time the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns forced people to focus on things close to home, Bakker said.

“People saw the mill in their neighborhood and thought, well, okay, maybe it’s great to become a miller,” she said in an interview on the top floor of the windmill she calls home, where slabs of yellowing pig fat — used to grease the mill’s wooden components — hang from the rafters.

Booij’s fascination for windmills started small and grew. He began by working on a scale model of a mill built by his late father-in-law — also a miller — and then moved onto the real thing. He trained for two years before taking the exam last year.

“You have to know everything about the mill but also the weather is very important. You have to know what you can expect from certain kinds of weather and the wind of course,” he said. “Thunder is also a very dangerous thing for the millers because of the lightning.”

Working at a windmill is also a good conversation starter.

“Most people don’t know that this profession still exists and they are not aware that a mill has to be run by a miller and what the miller has to do and that it’s still possible to do work or spend time on a mill,” said d’Ailly.

“Every Dutch citizen sees mills everywhere ... but they are not aware of what happens inside and they are intrigued.”