3.4 kmAnsager Municipality Plantation
Short forest trip with a nature playground and uneven terrain, ideal as an extra outing for children.
Kvie Lake is located about 2 km north of Ansager and is especially easy to use with children: shallow water, a sandy bottom, a floating jetty and a playground are all gathered by the public bathing beach. Swimming is only allowed in the marked bathing area with posts in the lake’s northern end, and the bathing beach is not supervised.
The trail goes all the way around the lake on firm gravel and can be used by walkers, prams, wheelchairs and bicycles. The route is marked with heart trail symbols and maps, so a short trip around the lake can be combined with swimming, play or food by the water without making the outing large and complicated.
Kvie Lake is a protected lobelia lake: a rare, nutrient-poor type of lake with clear water and special rooted aquatic plants. The lake has no surface inflows, and water exchange is slow, so pollution and wear do not simply disappear quickly. By the beach area lies the former lakeside pavilion, now Pandekagehuset, with a terrace facing the water. It creates a rather sharp contrast: pancakes, children’s play and a sauna cabin close to a lake type that requires rather careful use.
At Kvie Sø, falconer Frank Skaarup from Suldrup gave a display on 20 October 2018. The bird was a lanner falcon, and local coverage describes how it came rushing by just a few centimetres above the heads of the audience.
It was not just a bird on a glove, but a demonstration of speed, precision, and training. Along the way, the falcon also took a detour before being reunited with the falconer again.
The photo shows children from Copenhagen, probably from Apostelkirken, in the water at Kvie Sø. It is a small but telling motif: already in the 1930s, the lake was not only a local bathing spot.
In 1932, the pavilion north of the lake opened, so bathers could come in and sit with food and drink. The old bathing pleasure today stands side by side with consideration for the shallow, vulnerable lobelia lake.
Kvie Lake has its own water spirit: Nekkus, also called Nicus. In the legend, he is not pure evil, but fickle enough to demand an annual heifer – and to take it himself if the sacrifice was not made.
In another version, he lets heifers or oxen escape from him with his hook in their harness. The farmers place the hook by the church, where Nekkus cannot bear to come. When he gets it back, he strikes it against the wall so that it cracks: “Heifer calves dragged the Hook from Nekkus’ Hand.”
East of Kvie Sø lies a holiday home area with around 230 houses as of 2023. It is not just newer holiday development: the first holiday homes appeared in the 1930s, and the actual subdivision gained momentum in the 1970s.
In the early 2000s, the area was expanded significantly. Therefore, older holiday homes and newer subdivisions lie side by side by the protected, vulnerable lake.
