De Wicher is one of several drainage windmills that dot the Weerribben landscape, used historically to pump water from the low-lying peat fields into the higher drainage channels. The mills gave this part of the Netherlands its characteristic silhouette: a squat, thatched body with long wooden sails, standing a few metres above the flat reed horizon.
Drainage mills like De Wicher were essential to making the peat landscape habitable and farmable. Without continuous pumping, the land behind the levees would quickly revert to marsh. Today, electric pumping stations have replaced most of the mills' practical function, but several are maintained as working monuments and open to visitors on specific days.
The walk or cycle from Kalenberg to De Wicher along the levee paths takes about 20 minutes and gives a good sense of the scale and flatness of the peat landscape.