DE PERE, Wisc. (SPECTRUM NEWS) — It’s not a job title you encounter every day: Lock tender.
For Scott Thompson, it’s his job on Tuesdays.
You’ll find him working the De Pere lock where he helps boaters through a system built more than 150 years ago. The work today — like then — is still done by hand on historic equipment.
“It’s a very different job,” Thompson says. “Physical, yeah. And quiet at times, yeah. But it’s the history that really tells the story.”
It’s a history he shares with boaters and the public when they pass through or ask questions.
More people are finding out about the lock system experiences, and that may have something to do with the pandemic. Last month, there was a significant increase in volume and water traffic.
In June, the Fox River Navigational Authority recorded 1,250 boats using the system, that’s more than double the number in June 2019.
“It’s almost like a re-discovery of things we can do together without having to go anywhere outside of our local communities,” says Jeremy Cords, the authority’s chief executive officer.
The locks help boaters — who pay a fee — move between Green Bay and Wrightstown — and Wrightstown to Menasha — on the Fox River. A lock near Wrightstown is closed to stop the spread of invasive species.
Thompson is versed in the history of the locks and the people who worked them in decades and centuries past. While his job has a connection to those people, he knows it’s also very different.
“It was a much more demanding job back then. Boats came through 24 hours a day,” he says. “There were very few pleasure boats. It was mostly big barges full of coal, building supplies, goods from the valley leaving and goods to the valley getting down that way came through here.”