- This week on Wisconsin Life :
Meet the owner of a thriving trolley business,
a gatekeeper of the Fox River,
a pair hitting rock bottom,
[clink, clink]
and an artist bringing the heat to the classroom.
It's all ahead on Wisconsin Life .
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- Funding for Wisconsin Life
is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
- Hi, I'm Angela Fitzgerald and welcome to Wisconsin Life .
I'm at Door County Trolley,
a local business that offers tours around the peninsula
in these old-fashioned streetcars.
Our tour begins in Egg Harbor at the company's headquarters
that houses 15 trolleys.
Guests arrive,
then it's time to hop on for a ride.
Our trolley will take us on the historic
lighthouse tour
which offers a bit of nature,
history,
and a view from the top.
There are 11 lighthouses
that still remain in Door County
and we'll get a chance to see some of those from the inside.
However, it's not the destination that's important,
it's how you get there.
And today, it's on board a beautiful trolley.
A trolley that was built just a couple of counties over,
right here in Wisconsin.
So, we're off to Crandon;
home to a business
that keeps the neighborhood rolling.
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[trolley bell dinging]
- Trolleys are fun.
- All aboard.
Here we go.
- Kristina Pence-Dunow understands that.
- It's an American history for one thing.
Trolleys are like an iconic form of transportation.
- Kristina's been making trolleys
since she was a teenager,
and the thrill has never worn off.
- I feel like I'm going to Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. [laughs]
- Kristina sends Hometown Trolleys
from Crandon, Wisconsin
to vacation spots around the country
and the result is always the same.
- People will let city buses go by,
but if they see a trolley,
they'll wait and ride that trolley
because it's fun and it's an experience.
- So trolleys are fun,
but who knew making trolleys could be fun too?
- When an employee is happy, the product is happy.
- When Kristina Pence-Dunow
walks the floor of Hometown Trolleys,
she is many things at once.
- Hey, Richie, how many seats do you have left?
- Like three. - One, two, three...
- She's the owner.
She's the inspector.
But she's also a mother.
- Hometown Trolley really is a family and a team company.
So, when I walk through the shop I'm like mother hen.
Hi, what's your name?
- Ian, I just started here.
- When? - Today.
- Oh, today 'cuz I'm like,
"Wait a minute, I don't know you."
It's his first day. [chuckles]
- In two cases, she literally is mother.
Both her son and daughter are employees.
And Kristina knew many of her employees
long before they came to work here.
- I mean, I know these--
Some of these people were kids
in the same class as my children.
And so, I know on their faces if they're having a bad day.
- Kristina knows about bad days, too.
In the early '90s, she and her first husband
moved their fledgling trolley business
from Illinois to Crandon.
- It was a culture shock,
really, to come to the Northwoods from Illinois.
- After a divorce, Kristina kept the company
and decided to make it her own.
- I was a single mom in the Northwoods
not knowing what to do.
We had eight to twelve employees.
And I had to fire, probably, half of them to get respect
and rehire them as the woman taking over
when the husband's leaving.
To get their respect, I learned every single process.
When I took over, we did one trolley a month
and now we're doing two to three a week.
Fifty-two employees and we're adding six more jobs
as soon as we tear down the wall and can expand out.
[high-pitched whirring] - To attract good workers,
Kristina sells the family atmosphere,
and the ability to earn a good living in the Northwoods.
[snow mobile opens throttle "vrooom"]
For some employees,
the chance to ride your snowmobile to work in winter
is a perk.
- It's just a fun thing to ride to work.
You know, it's 20 minutes of fun before you get to work.
- Occasionally,
Kristina visits her trolleys in their new home.
- We do have a big order coming up this summer for Hawaii
and so we'll plan on a trip there
and I'll definitely be going on that trip.
- But it's always nice to come home.
- When you go away and you come back,
it's just cleaner air, cleaner water, space.
What trolleys do you want to go in and see today?
That one? - Angela: Now remarried,
Kristina has family all around her at work.
- Going to drive, Chase?
Get up in the driver's seat.
- Even her grandsons like to inspect the trolleys
before they leave for warmer climates.
- Look, see there's grandma's trolley bell up on the wall.
For some reason, I was chosen to do trolleys
and it's grown on me and I love 'em.
So, I love the trolleys,
and I love the colors,
and I love the fact that we're building a happy product.
Can you pull hard?
[ding resonates] [chuckling]
You want to do it now?
- There are people across our state
that love the work they do.
Just like the next story
takes us to Lake Winnebago
where one man's
love for his work
all began by the water.
[breeze and waves]
- There's a certain freedom that you feel
when you get out on the water.
- Not everyone finds their life's passion as a child.
- And the area just was very interesting
to a young kid.
I mean you hop on your bike and come down here...
- But Bob Stark did.
There's even a photo of it happening.
- I'm probably, what? maybe 10, 11 years old there.
- That's when he took the wheel of a family friend's boat
on Lake Winnebago.
- That's when it bit, and it's been there ever since.
I mean,
look at the look on that face! [chuckles]
[wave splashes]
- And he's never looked back.
- I've had a boat since I was 12 years old.
- Soon Bob's view went beyond the shores of Lake Winnebago.
- You could see the tug boats going out here on the water.
They would have to take and go out around the entrance buoy
before they could come into the river
and go to the various yards that are along the river.
One day it was like,
yeah, you can go anywhere in the world from here.
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- The key was the Fox River Locks.
A series of 17 bays
where boats could enter at one water level...
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...and exit at another.
Up or down, depending if
you're heading upstream to Lake Winnebago...
- Bye.
- ...or downstream to Green Bay.
- The water drops 170 feet going through the Lower Fox River
from when it leaves Lake Winnebago
until it enters the bay of Green Bay.
That's about the height of Niagara Falls
if you put that into perspective.
- What's even more amazing is
the locks don't rely on big pumps and motors.
- Twelve turns to open the gate.
- They are all operated by hand
and with a simple understanding of physics.
- Hi, there. - Hi.
- When a boat enters the lock, the doors are closed
and a series of valves are opened
to allow the water to drain
down to the level of the next segment of the river.
- We used to tell our kids it was like being in a bathtub.
- Then, the next set of doors are opened
and the boats can go.
- Woman: Away we go.
- To go upstream, just reverse the process.
Water from upstream fills the lock to the proper level.
- It fills up with water
and then you go through a little door thingy.
- Gravity makes the water pressure pushing on the doors
so strong it's impossible to open them
until the water level and pressure
on both sides is equal.
- When you're in a lock,
you get a real appreciation for the power of water.
[bird trills]
- The locks were built in the 1850s.
- Wisconsin became a state in 1848,
and the construction of the lock system was actually
the first public works project for the state of Wisconsin.
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- At the time,
water was the main highway
to get goods in and out of the Fox Valley.
The original logbooks show
a lot of coal coming in
and paper products heading out.
[old-timey piano music]
Eventually, the railroads and interstate system
made commercial shipping on the Fox River obsolete.
- The last trip,
I want to say, was, I think, officially in 1988.
- Federal funding for maintenance dried up
and the Fox River Locks fell into disrepair and were closed.
- Ultimately, the whole system was destined to be filled in.
In some instances, literally torn out
and it just simply would have gone away.
I found out about this group that was trying to preserve it.
I got involved with them.
- The group became the Fox River Navigational System Authority.
Bob became chairman, and then CEO.
- The more that I got into it,
the more personal it became.
- Bob knew firsthand the impact the locks had
on his life and his children.
- It's been part of my fabric ever since I was a small kid.
I didn't know I was learning physics.
I didn't know I was learning history.
That's why I got involved and why I have the passion
to do what I do.
- See you later.
- This needs to be preserved for everybody
so that other people can experience that, as well.
- It took 10 years and $15 million dollars,
but the locks are restored and busy.
- You go to a museum
and you stand on "this" side of the rope.
Here, you are in this living museum
and you're actually using it
and you're helping to preserve it.
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- It's been a long time
since Bob's first trip through the locks
but it never gets old.
- It's a thrill.
It's amazing to me that you can do that.
You can't get there from there
unless you do that, right?
This is the last lock going downriver.
You can see the mouth of the bay down there.
There's the world out there.
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- I'm in Door County on a tour of the area
via a bright red trolley.
Our tour is well underway
and one of the most fascinating things we're learning
is the important role lighthouses have played
through the years here.
- Let's put on a show. Let's have some fun.
- When it comes to being in the know,
John Berns is the expert.
- We'd have to talk about dangerous waters to find out
that there really was a need for lighthouses.
People do a little homework about Door County.
It's one mass of limestone ledge here.
So because of that rocky shorelines,
reefs all over the place, dangerous waters.
One day you're safe and the next day
you run into where the shoals are.
The rocks are much higher.
So we definitely had a need for lighthouses up here.
- That reputation of dangerous waters
is exactly how Door County got its name.
- We have a very dangerous body of water
that is quite famous here called Death's Door.
That's how Door County got its name
way back when Wisconsin divided up
into sections, counties.
It was 1852, I believe, 1851, possibly.
They were looking for a name that was fitting up here.
Well, that dangerous body of water
between the mainland and Washington Island
was called "Death's Door."
So, what fits? Door County.
I just--
You couldn't wait to schedule a trip to Death County.
So we're quite pleased that they made the choice
because of the dangerous waters: Door County.
Much better fit.
- A lot of history to discover on the trolley tour
with a few fun stops along the way.
- We go to some of the most treasured jewels in Door County.
We start out at Eagle Bluff Lighthouse,
fully restored to the 1880s and 1890s.
From there, after getting a great history lesson,
we go across to the other side of Door County,
the Lake Michigan side.
And we go to the Baileys Harbor Range Lights.
We would love people to come see us
and learn what range lights are.
There's a great history lesson to be had there.
So then, we finish up our day at the wonderful Cana Island
where we actually transport people
over to a almost nine-acre island.
So quite varied.
Each stop is very different.
Each stop is very unique.
I enjoy doing that at least three, four days a week.
- One of a kind stops,
all with a well-informed tour guide leading the way.
- Everybody, the road to the left is Peninsula Players Road.
- Welcome to the Baileys Harbor Range Lights.
[playful, energetic jazz]
- There we go. Looking good, guys!
Looking good!
- Definitely a unique way
to see all that Door County has to offer.
But this isn't the only place to find hidden gems.
We meet with a pair in Fountain City
searching for their next big find.
- Usually, we have a fist fight, don't we?
[chuckling] - Yeah, you'd goose me.
Anyway... [chuckling] That was just laying here?
- Yeah, that was just laying right here.
- There's nothing like walking a field on a spring day.
- In farm fields across Wisconsin,
spring is the time to pick rocks.
- Look at this piece, Bob.
- But Bob Keiper and Gary Eldred aren't farmers.
- Ooooh, look at the color in that one.
- They're flintknappers
and they're looking for rocks
shaped by ancient hands.
- All of the different cultures of Indians
from Paleo all the way up to modern times
are found in that field.
- This field is just below an ancient rock quarry
called Silver Mound.
[clink, clink] - My guess is they were quarrying it
right off this slope
and taking it down there to work it up.
- There never was silver in the hill
but the ancestors of modern First Nations people
found something more precious;
a rock they could shape into knives and scrapers
and arrowheads.
- When you find this high-quality material,
you know that it's a workshop site.
- Broken pieces and raw material
were left on site and covered up
by the passage of time.
- You just can't imagine
how much material
there is
in these fields.
- Each year,
spring brings old stones to the surface
and the farmer makes rock piles on the edge of the field.
- Of course, he says, "Take all the stone
'cause it wrecks my farm machinery."
- These rock piles
are like little treasure chests, aren't they?
- Listen to this stuff.
[clink, clink, clink, clink] It just rings.
- Every one of these pieces will have been tested.
- Bob and Gary aren't just looking for artifacts,
they're looking for the raw material
so they can make their own points.
- We're going to take this one.
Oh, it's got honey in there and it's thick.
Oh, Gary! Look at this.
- Bob and Gary enjoy knapping together
but the term has nothing to do with sleep.
- "Knapping" is a German word that means "to break stone."
So flint knapping is "to break stone."
- A few thousand years ago,
people used a hammerstone and a deer antler.
Modern tools aren't that much different.
- Most knappers don't have fingernails.
They're all broke off.
- Knapping is about technique and the quality of the material.
The stone must be hit in just the right spot
to knock off a flake.
- The question is: should I take this one or this one?
- That makes the original stone thinner and sharper.
The flake itself could become a smaller piece.
- You against the stone is what I like to think,
but a lot of times it's you against yourself.
- You can also tell almost right away by the sound of the crack
whether it was a good one or not.
- A knapper can work for hours
only to find a flaw in the rock that makes it useless.
- So he just threw it away.
- Gary thinks that's why this stone was discarded.
- He was trying to make a atlatl blade or a hand knife.
So to get that off, the piece would have ended up
being too small for what he needed.
So he just tossed it.
So the idea of picking up these pieces like this
that are discarded on the sites
really gives you way more insight
than the finished blade.
- Not every stone is knappable.
Outcroppings of silicified sandstone
like Silver Mound
were destination spots for ancient toolmakers.
- It was not only Native Americans that worked flint.
I mean, my ancestors, you know, Norwegian and German,
they worked flint, too.
We all went through the Stone Age.
All of our families went through the Stone Age.
It wasn't just our Native Americans here.
- Gary and Bob each remember
finding their first arrowhead as boys
and wanting to know how they were made.
- I just kind of stuck with it all these years.
It's just-- I don't know why,
but the whole history of the thing just captivated me.
- You just can't pass up a piece like that.
- You can pick up a flake of stone
and you make this connection
with whoever it was that knocked that off
or made that point or broke it.
- They also travel the country attending knap-ins,
where knappers get together to trade stone and stories
[clink] and break rock.
- There's a rhythm.
If you get eight or ten guys together
and once they get focused,
there's not a lot of talk going on.
- Even the knap-in has a connection to ancient peoples.
- Can you imagine what it would be like way back when
another group comes to the same quarry site?
- Is there a conflict?
Or is it a time to share knowledge, experience, stories?
- Gary and Bob have each been knapping for more than 40 years
with no plans to stop.
- It's like opening up presents.
You never know what's going to be inside the next rock.
- Here, here. Use this.
[chuckling] Isn't that a beauty? - Yeah.
- It's all about the creation for me.
[clink] You sit down and knap
[scraping sound] and something flows through your mind.
It's just this primordial connection that's there.
I don't know.
I can't-- I can't explain it.
- Creating and connecting to the outside world
can be part of an artist's journey.
That's certainly true for a Madison artist
who shares her craft with students.
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- In elementary school,
we're introduced to solids and liquids and gases,
and we understand those things
or how to interact with them.
But glass has this really, like,
alien behavior of, like,
being amorphous.
How do you interact with something
that's changing its behavior
as you work with it?
It's just really captivating to me.
Now try the blades vertical and spread them
to shape that shoulder.
Yes! More vertical.
I teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and I teach glass in the Art Department.
[glass bounces "clank, plink, plink"]
It's more exciting when it crashes, but... [laughs]
We start with a furnace.
It's super-hot.
It's at about 2150 Fahrenheit.
And you throw in
glass that we buy from a manufacturer.
It melts
and then you gather it out of the furnace.
And it's like a viscous liquid.
It's sort of like when you're trying to gather up honey.
Once you have this fulcrum, [whistles for "pay attention"]
you just have to do the lightest thing
and it just comes up.
I think what I'm teaching them,
it's like this act of magic to transfer that information
from my body to a student's body.
Like, they can see me do something
and they're like, "How did you do that?" [laughs]
But to work them through the process
of learning how to do that with their own bodies
is really exciting to me.
Push forward to help it get shorter, too.
Right, now it's really squatted up quite a bit.
We're at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Glass Lab in the Art Department.
This is a really historically-relevant glass program.
It was founded by Harvey Littleton in 1962.
He was a ceramics professor
that was really interested in whether one could have
an independent artist studio working with glass,
because prior to that,
glass really existed in factories and industry.
So it was the beginning of glass
being something one could study at a university,
as well as something
an individual artist
could practice on their own.
A lot of people "get bit by the glass bug,"
is how people refer to it.
Once you get into it,
you kind of just don't stop.
My artwork,
it's just my filter on the world.
This is Alphabit .
It's modeled after a letterpress type cabinet.
Each of these pieces is an individual cross-section
of a solid tube of glass.
I'm going to estimate just under 10,000 little pieces
of glass type in here.
And it's kind of in response to our relationship to our phones.
We're constantly connected to them.
So I'm taking the material from the smart phone, the glass,
and trying to bring it back
to our former relationship
with physical typography.
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I make a lot of glass work that references language
because my grandmother raised me
and she only spoke Chinese.
And so I played translator a lot.
And I was always moving
between the English-speaking world
and the Chinese-speaking world.
That experience of being bilingual
has definitely influenced
my outlook as an artist
and my interest as an artist, as well.
I really like working in glass.
To ask my body to interact with this changing state of matter
is something that continually captivates me.
My art is something that feels like it's completely mine.
It feels really authentic.
It feels like no one else can be doing that work but me.
- I've met some friends and learned a bit of history
all aboard a Wisconsin-made trolley.
If you would like to learn more about Door County Trolley
or the stories you've seen today
visit WisconsinLife .org.
We'd love to hear about your Wisconsin Life
so send us your ideas at
WisconsinLife@wpt.org.
Until we meet again,
I'm your host, Angela Fitzgerald,
and this is our Wisconsin Life .
Bye.
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- Funding for Wisconsin Life
is provided in part
by Alliant Energy,
Lowell and Mary Peterson,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.