Tomah to Portage, Wisconsin Great American Railroad Journeys


Tomah to Portage, Wisconsin

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I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads

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of North America with my reliable Appleton's guide.

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Published in the late 19th century,

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Appleton's General Guide to North America will direct me to all that's

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novel, beautiful, memorable

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and striking in the United States.

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'As I journey across this vast continent,

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'I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West...'

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GUNS SHOTS

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'And how the railroads tied this nation together,

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'helping to create the global superstate of today.'

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I'm concluding that part of my journey that skirts

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the Upper Mississippi.

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I hope to learn how the technology of the region's new inhabitants

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enabled them to tame and to channel

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and to link the waters in order to increase

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the opportunities for trade.

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How the riverscape became a pin-up

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and how the people survived on a diet of berries and circuses.

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'This route began in Minnesota's twin cities,

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'following the Mississippi to the Wisconsin border at La Crosse.

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'I'm now heading for the Great Lakes,

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'where I'll turn south at Milwaukee,

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'bound for America's railway capital, Chicago.

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'I'll follow the route of the historic Illinois Central Railroad,

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'through Centralia,

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'then rejoin the Mississippi

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'to finish my journey in the home of the Blues.

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'Today, I'll start in Tomah, where flooded marshlands bear fruit.

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'Heading east, I'll discover the man who made Wisconsin Dells

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'a magnet for railway tourists.

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'My last stop will be Portage,

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'whose role was crucial in 19th-century navigation.

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'On this journey, I bury myself in the Thanksgiving harvest...'

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We are moving a vast number of cranberries,

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just vast.

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'Take the plunge in the water park capital of the world...'

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'..and find out how railroads spread the joy of the

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'Greatest Show On Earth.'

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Holy whoop-de-doodle, here comes the train and there's an elephant trunk

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sticking out of one of them,

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a clown sitting on the vestibule of another...

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My next stop will be Tomah, Wisconsin.

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Appleton's tells me it's at the crossing

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of the Wisconsin Valley Railroad in a very fertile valley,

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that's probably why the book says that it's a growing village -

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food for thought!

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'I'm alighting here to discover how an ingenious 19th-century farming

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'innovation brought cranberries to the masses.

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'Today, the state of Wisconsin

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'produces more cranberries than any other,

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'about five million, 100lb barrels each year -

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'that's 60% of the United States' entire crop.

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'There are 180,000 acres of cranberry marsh

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'and, at the centre of it all, is the village of Warrens.'

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The cranberry is, if anything, even more American than apple pie,

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since it features as an important component in the Thanksgiving feast.

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Warrens, Wisconsin, is the cranberry capital

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and the cranberry harvest is just beginning.

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I'm grief-stricken to be missing the Cranfest,

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which begins in ten days' time.

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'I've come to Wetherby Farm to meet one of the original founders of the

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'Cranberry Festival, Nodji Van Wychen.'

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-Nodji, hello.

-Hello, Michael.

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-Good to see you.

-Good to be here.

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Now, you are holding a pair of waders, are they for me?

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They certainly are and we're going to put you to work today

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and show you exactly how this whole process is done.

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'Nodji's grandfather started this cranberry farm

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'and her family has now been here for over a century.'

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Where does the cranberry come from?

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Well, the cranberry is native to North America.

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When the early Native Americans and Dutch settlers and so forth were in

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this area, they noticed that the blossom resembled the head

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and neck of a sandhill crane

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and those birds feast in these low-lying areas,

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so they named them "crane-berries" and it was shortened to cranberry,

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which we still call it today.

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So, here we are, a lot of floating cranberries.

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How come, how do they get to this state?

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Well, when we raise the water level up in the bed,

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we're ready for harvest,

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and then we have a mechanical machine called a harrow,

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which has tines in the front and the back.

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As the machine goes through the bed,

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it slips the fruit off the vine

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and they immediately float to the surface of the water.

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'Wisconsin's cranberry farms were established by 19th-century settlers.

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'At first, they picked the berries laboriously by hand,

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'then, in the 1870s, an area was deliberately flooded

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'to create the first cranberry marsh.'

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Your family has been here three generations.

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Um... I mean, how do you feel about the business you're in?

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Oh, it's my life, it's my way of life, I'm passionate about it,

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I grew up here.

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Um... My son and son-in-law are active in the business now,

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I have eight grandchildren

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and it's grandma's dream that one of those kids

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will take over the marsh and be the fifth generation on this marsh.

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'Well, on this, the first day of the harvest, it's all hands to the pump.

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'First, floating booms are used to round up the cranberries

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'before they're pumped into a waiting truck.'

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I'll... I'll get a few sections down, shall I?

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'Producing a litre carton of cranberry juice

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'takes about 1,000 of these berries.'

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We are moving a vast number of cranberries,

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just vast!

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Thank you very much.

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Next Thanksgiving,

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Americans can give thanks to me

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for bringing them their cranberry sauce.

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With tremendous force, the pump is sucking out the cranberries,

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distributing the fruit to the truck, getting rid of the rubbish,

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returning the waste water,

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but it's still very useful to have a couple of guys with a rake!

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'It's an impressive operation and a major part of Wisconsin's economy.'

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'The Empire Builder service travels from Seattle,

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'Washington, in the far north-west...

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'all the way across America to Chicago,

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'a journey of well over 2,000 miles

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'and lasting more than 45 hours.'

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-Excuse me?

-Howdy.

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May I join you a moment?

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-Pardon?

-May I join you a moment?

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-Sure.

-I'm-I'm interested, are you plotting our route on your map?

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Just the route that we're taking here

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over to New York City and, um, I'm just, uh,

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marking off the states I've been to.

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Where did you get on this train?

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Um... Olympia, Washington.

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My goodness! Where are you getting off this train?

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We're going to stop in Chicago and have...

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have a delay of four hours

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and then we're going to get off in New York City.

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And why are you doing that?

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Is it for the joy of travelling by train, or why?

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I'm, uh, travelling with my ex-wife.

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We were going to drive this route.

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The transmission went bad about in here, right here,

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we didn't get too far from home.

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So, we decided to take the train.

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You could have flown this distance in six hours,

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the train's going to take you more than three days.

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Yeah, the train's a lot more fun.

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MICHAEL CHUCKLES

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-Yeah.

-That's great.

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My next stop will be Wisconsin Dells,

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a place long popular with visitors.

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In the late 19th century, thanks to newish technology,

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prospective tourists could not only read about their destinations,

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but they could view their images in black and white.

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'I've arrived at a city on the Wisconsin River

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'lined by striking sandstone gorges and canyons,

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'cut by glacial meltwater thousands of years ago.

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'These beautiful dells are a natural tourist attraction

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'made famous by 19th-century photographer H H Bennett.

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'His studio is still here, managed by David Rambow.'

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Michael. Great to see you.

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David, I get the impression that H H Bennett was a big figure in the

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history of American photography, who was he?

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He started out as a carpenter's

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apprentice and then a carpenter and moved here from Vermont in 1857,

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right before the railroads came here.

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He took up photography, uh,

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quite early after his experiences in the Civil War.

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His right hand was damaged by a bullet,

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so he had to switch trades and do something a little bit easier.

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Very well-known for his landscapes,

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these were all taken around Wisconsin Dells, were they?

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These were all taken within a few miles of here.

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What do you think he did for Wisconsin Dells?

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He literally put Wisconsin Dells on the map

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with railroad travel and with tourism in general.

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'In 1886, this stunning photograph cemented Bennett's fame.

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'Before then, the long exposures required by early cameras had made

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'capturing motion almost impossible.'

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Well, this was an innovation, this was Bennett at his best.

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He, in the late 1880s,

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was dabbling with what he called an instantaneous shutter.

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It was... He called it a "snapper".

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It ran on a rubber band.

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This was actually his son

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that he induced somehow to jump 14 times to get it just right.

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When they first showed this in Chicago,

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people were astonished, they accused him of fraud,

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they wondered where the wires were holding the son,

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but he could show them that he could replicate this and it was real.

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'David has brought me to one of the Dells' most tranquil spots

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'to show me the way that H H Bennett worked.'

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He would have chosen any spot where you could get a good view

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of the rocks and the panorama over the river.

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Right, we're going to be dealing with chemicals, which don't agree with yellow jackets.

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I'm just going to get rid of that.

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So, what do we do?

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OK, first, we choose a nice, clean piece of metal.

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We have to pour something on it that will connect to the silver

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into the metal, and in my case, uh, we use collodion,

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which is a combination of ether, nitrocellulose and grain alcohol.

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Sounds like you might knock yourself out with that.

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I don't smoke near it, that's for certain.

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What you want to do is cover it completely

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without spilling too much, this is precious liquid.

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That's very satisfying, actually, David.

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'David disappears into his mobile darkroom to dip the plate

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'in silver nitrate, which makes it light-sensitive.'

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Bye for now!

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'The film now coating the plate will turn black when exposed to light.

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'A special holder protects it as it's transferred into the camera.'

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You have to remove this little baffle...

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-Ah-ha!

-And that exposes the film to the front, where the light

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-will come in.

-I'm going to remove the lens cap. How long for?

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Um, in this light, probably about five seconds.

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-Will you count me down?

-Certainly.

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Five, four, three,

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two, and clear.

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'The last step is to wash the plate in a solution of potassium cyanide.'

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What will this ghastly compound achieve?

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You'll be starting to see this image turn from what looks like

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a negative into a positive.

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I'm seeing the trees emerging as dark shapes and now, indeed,

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the image is spreading all the way across the plate.

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Now, look at that, David...

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Really, you have produced a beautiful image of the trees

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and the water and would not people have been drawn to Wisconsin Dells

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-by this photograph?

-That was the plan that Bennett had.

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He saw these put into libraries all over the South

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so people would want to be drawn here.

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'In H H Bennett's day, Wisconsin Dells was officially called

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'Kilbourn, named after the president of the railroad,

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'but local people had always referred to it as

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"the Dells," and in 1931,

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'the name was formally changed.

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'By the mid-19th century,

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'holiday-makers who came for the landscape

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'could also enjoy attractions from water-skiing to theme parks.

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'And today, the city bills itself

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'as the water park capital of the world.'

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The resort of Wisconsin Dells

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has changed a bit since the times of H H Bennett,

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but water is still very much the theme and, hey,

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you've got to flow with the times.

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MUSIC: Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner

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Whoo!

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More revealing of a person's character

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than any 19th-century photograph!

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'Before rejoining the railroad,

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'I'm making a detour to another important attraction.

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'A short distance away is Baraboo, a place that,

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'in the late 19th century, became known as Circus City.

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'Today, it's home to a quirky museum

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'with a special draw for the railway enthusiast.'

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Welcome, welcome to Circus World.

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A magical world for me, not only a train shed,

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but a train shed full of circus vehicles.

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Circus train, for sure,

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it's over 600 feet long and it contains a full circus train

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on three different sidings.

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'Former clown and ringmaster, Scott O'Donnell,

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'is the museum's director.'

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Scott, I think this is one of the most extraordinary places

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I've ever been and we're walking on flat railway cars,

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what were these for?

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Uh, the flat cars in the circus were for transporting all of the exciting

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and spectacular circus wagons from town to town.

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These are magnificent wagons that weigh from five to 12 tonnes apiece.

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'Baraboo was home to the five Ringling brothers.

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'They opened their first circus on the site in 1884

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'and started to tour the Midwest.

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'But within six years, they were using the railroad

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'to take their acts much further afield.'

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Paint me a picture of those trains.

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Sure, so the train in its entirety is probably a mile long.

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Uh, it's a combination of flat cars, such as we're walking on,

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and it's a combination of Pullman cars,

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sleeping cars for the performers to live in as well.

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Then there is also some specialised stock cars which took the elephants

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or any of the other exotic animals from town to town.

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'The Ringlings weren't the only circus to use the railroad.

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'In 1872, their fellow Wisconsinite, P T Barnum,

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'famous for creating the Greatest Show On Earth,

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'pioneered the idea of the specially-designed circus train.'

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Is Wisconsin special in the history of American circus?

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It's an important state because it's like a hub to the rest of America.

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You could go east or you could go west.

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It also had good rail infrastructure,

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so that allowed a lot of circuses to be formed here.

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When the circus came to town, it was like a national holiday.

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Schools were let out,

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businesses took the day off because the circus came to town with sights

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and sounds and smells that you'd never seen before.

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Electricity is an attraction when you're at the circus.

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Flying machines, automobiles, recorded sound.

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Whether it's animals in a menagerie,

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whether it's people with some unique physical features in the sideshow,

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you can imagine the awe and excitement that would be found

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at a day at the circus.

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'The Ringling brothers bought Barnum's circus in 1907

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'and still use the railroad.'

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Travelling by train is like the United Nations on rails,

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you could have a Mongolian contortion act,

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next to a Hungarian teeterboard act,

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next to a Brazilian tiger trainer,

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and that's an amazing world to be a part of, especially on rail.

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You get to sit on a vestibule in your train car

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and watch America go by.

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Part of the magic of the circus is you're standing at the side of the

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road, the arms go down for a train coming and holy whoop-de-doodle,

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here comes the train and there's an elephant trunk sticking out

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of one of them, there's a clown sitting on the vestibule of another,

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and that's a great experience.

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Controversially, in Europe, is the use of animals.

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Obviously, they were used in the United States, are they used still?

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Animals are still used in America, not in every circus,

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but on classic or traditional circuses, um...

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We, here at Circus World, have animals with us during the summertime.

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Shall we move along and you can show me some tricks?

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Absolutely.

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Michael, welcome. Welcome to the centre ring.

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We have some fantastic circus wardrobe for you to put on,

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although, by the looks of it, you don't need much other

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than the nose and the hat, but your choice!

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I... I'm going to go for this jacket, cos it's...

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-It's kind of my style.

-Polka-dots are in, absolutely.

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-Good, OK.

-Of course, you can't do nothing without one of these.

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-Oh!

-Ah, how do I look?

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Ta-dah!

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Very fine. Right. Shall we teach you some tricks?

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Yes. Well, you can try to.

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OK. Get yourself a broom and your finger,

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put the broom on your finger and work on your balancing skills.

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It's best when you're balancing just to look at the top,

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so, if it starts to lean one way,

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you come underneath and counterbalance with your finger.

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Right. All I can really see is my...

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-Is my nose.

-Is your nose...

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And you're off.

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Nicely done, look at you sweeping up with these skills!

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Centre ring, here you come.

0:20:370:20:38

My goodness, there's sawdust in your veins, I can tell.

0:20:380:20:41

Back, nose!

0:20:430:20:45

OK, we're going to spin plates with the skills that you just learned

0:20:450:20:48

balancing the broom. So get yourself a plate, get yourself a stick...

0:20:480:20:52

Sit it on the stick and you're going to let it go right around the stick

0:20:520:20:56

until it goes right to the centre and spin around... It does.

0:20:560:21:00

And...go.

0:21:000:21:02

Nice.

0:21:020:21:04

I've spent 30 years of my life working on spin!

0:21:040:21:07

And the circus performer is born.

0:21:080:21:11

Whoa!

0:21:110:21:13

Really nice.

0:21:190:21:20

'There's one more stop on this leg of my journey.

0:21:260:21:30

'A short train ride just 20 minutes east.'

0:21:300:21:33

The Empire Builder train, that left Seattle 44 hours ago,

0:21:430:21:49

is approaching Portage city,

0:21:490:21:51

which Appleton's tells me is situated at the head of navigation

0:21:510:21:55

of the Wisconsin River

0:21:550:21:57

and on the canal connecting the Fox and the Wisconsin

0:21:570:22:01

at a junction of the Milwaukee and St Paul Railroad.

0:22:010:22:07

A portage was a place where you had to carry your boat

0:22:070:22:10

between one body of water and another.

0:22:100:22:13

Ouch!

0:22:130:22:15

TRAIN HORN BLOWS

0:22:150:22:17

Ah! Thanks for the ride.

0:22:210:22:23

So how long is your route? Where do you go backwards and forwards from?

0:22:230:22:26

Between Chicago and Winona, Minnesota.

0:22:260:22:28

How long have you been on the railroad?

0:22:280:22:29

-Uh, eight years.

-Yeah, that's quite a long stint.

0:22:290:22:32

-Eight years.

-So, what do you have to do now as we come into this station?

0:22:320:22:35

I have to tell the engineer when to stop,

0:22:350:22:37

I have to have him stop at a specific point on the platform.

0:22:370:22:40

-OK, I'm going to let you concentrate on that.

-All right.

0:22:400:22:42

So you tell him how many car lengths, is that right?

0:22:420:22:45

Yeah, how many car lengths until I need him to stop.

0:22:450:22:47

Four cars.

0:22:510:22:53

Three.

0:22:540:22:56

Two.

0:22:570:22:59

One.

0:22:590:23:01

-Hope to see you on another ride.

-I hope so too.

0:23:060:23:08

-Bye-bye, now.

-Take care.

0:23:080:23:10

'The canal described in my Appleton's was once a vital link

0:23:220:23:26

'in America's 19th-century system of waterways.

0:23:260:23:30

'I'm hearing the story from amateur historian Fred Galley.'

0:23:300:23:34

-Hello, Fred.

-Hello, Michael. Welcome to Portage.

0:23:340:23:36

-Thank you so much.

-We're happy to have you here.

0:23:360:23:39

And this is the Portage Canal?

0:23:390:23:40

Yes, it is. This first section was built in 1876,

0:23:400:23:44

but the history of the portage goes back some 10,000 years.

0:23:440:23:47

So there was a portage between the Fox River and the Wisconsin River.

0:23:470:23:52

How far were people having to carry their boats?

0:23:520:23:54

A mile and a quarter, that's about 2,000 metres.

0:23:540:23:56

And what sort of land was between the two?

0:23:560:23:59

Well, it was a marshy area.

0:23:590:24:01

'This short section of marsh

0:24:020:24:05

'was the only obstacle to travelling thousands of miles by water.

0:24:050:24:08

'The Fox River is linked to the Great Lakes

0:24:080:24:11

'and thence to the Atlantic Ocean.

0:24:110:24:14

'The Wisconsin River joins the mighty Mississippi, which, in turn,

0:24:140:24:18

'flows all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.'

0:24:180:24:20

The Native Americans knew about and used this portage,

0:24:200:24:23

who were the first Europeans to do so?

0:24:230:24:25

The first Europeans were Marquette and Joliet.

0:24:250:24:28

They came in 1673,

0:24:280:24:30

they were French explorers and the Indian translators told them

0:24:300:24:33

where the portage was.

0:24:330:24:35

In the heyday of the portage, what was it like?

0:24:350:24:37

Around 1800, the portage really started to be used

0:24:370:24:40

and what it was used for was people travelling west.

0:24:400:24:43

So, at its height, about 1,000 people a year would cross

0:24:430:24:46

the portage and that continued on until the 1830s or even 1840s.

0:24:460:24:52

There were a number of different entrepreneurs that started a livery service.

0:24:520:24:55

And when you pulled up in your boat in the Fox River,

0:24:550:24:59

they would come down and ask you if you wanted help.

0:24:590:25:01

And for 5 or 10,

0:25:010:25:03

they would take all of your stuff and carry it to the other side

0:25:030:25:05

of the Wisconsin River, get you all situated and push you off

0:25:050:25:08

and send you downriver.

0:25:080:25:10

'The waterways were being used increasingly to transport wheat and

0:25:110:25:15

'manufactured goods.

0:25:150:25:17

'Local businessmen began to campaign for a canal in 1829,

0:25:170:25:21

'but it failed due to a lack of funds.

0:25:210:25:24

'Eventually, in the 1870s,

0:25:240:25:26

'the Army Corps of Engineers took on and completed the project.'

0:25:260:25:30

1876 is very late for a canal, because, by then,

0:25:310:25:35

-you've got railroads.

-Right.

0:25:350:25:36

And that kind of caused a lot of problems.

0:25:360:25:39

But what happened was the railroad was a monopoly and they were

0:25:390:25:42

charging just extravagant amounts of money to haul these goods.

0:25:420:25:45

The entire Fox-Wisconsin water system was built

0:25:450:25:48

to make the railroads lower their prices and be accountable, you know,

0:25:480:25:53

give them some competition.

0:25:530:25:54

Thinking back to the days of the portage,

0:25:540:25:57

what do you think it was like for the ordinary person having to lug

0:25:570:26:00

their canoe a mile and a half?

0:26:000:26:02

Well, I've got one sitting right over here, let's give it a try.

0:26:020:26:05

OK!

0:26:050:26:06

And how would you set about carrying that?

0:26:090:26:11

Well...

0:26:110:26:12

So, you grab it like this...

0:26:120:26:14

Then we pick it up and flip it over!

0:26:140:26:17

Oh, hang on, Fred. Hang on, hang on, hang on!

0:26:170:26:20

I think you and I are a bit old for this, don't you?

0:26:200:26:22

-Just a little, yes.

-Look, there's a handle at each end.

0:26:220:26:25

There's a handle at each end, let's try that.

0:26:250:26:27

Let's try that. OK.

0:26:270:26:29

-Hup!

-All right, we're ready to go!

0:26:290:26:32

-OK, how far?

-2,700 paces.

0:26:320:26:34

2,700.

0:26:340:26:36

19, 20, 21, 22...

0:26:370:26:39

That's a long way to 2,700.

0:26:390:26:41

-Hard work, Fred.

-Yes, might be easier if we put it in the canal.

0:26:410:26:45

Now you tell me!

0:26:450:26:47

So, up ahead, Michael, is the Wisconsin River lock.

0:26:510:26:54

How far are we now from the Wisconsin?

0:26:540:26:56

Well, the Wisconsin is just down the other side of this levee, so not far, like, 100 feet.

0:26:560:27:00

Well, Fred, you're right about one thing.

0:27:010:27:03

Paddling a canoe certainly beats carrying a canoe.

0:27:030:27:07

That's correct.

0:27:070:27:09

'The riverscape of North America would have changed hardly at all

0:27:130:27:16

'in the thousands of years that Native Americans

0:27:160:27:19

'hunted and fished this region.

0:27:190:27:23

'The white settlers converted the Mississippi

0:27:230:27:26

'into a major artery for commerce and, later,

0:27:260:27:29

'engineers built this Portage Canal to connect the North Atlantic

0:27:290:27:33

'to the Gulf of Mexico.'

0:27:330:27:35

Railroads, farms, cities and highways followed.

0:27:360:27:40

The taming and development of the Midwest

0:27:400:27:43

offers an extraordinary example of American grit and ingenuity.

0:27:430:27:48

'Next time, I taste the freedom of the American open road.'

0:27:550:27:59

-Ready to ride?

-I'm ready to ride.

0:27:590:28:01

'I'm bowled over.'

0:28:050:28:06

Yay!

0:28:080:28:11

'And learn how innovation delivered a fuel injection...'

0:28:110:28:14

And a little bit of gas.

0:28:140:28:15

'..to 19th-century farming.'

0:28:150:28:17

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