Transportation Lesson #2: Mail Boat Delivery Jump Tour (Lake Geneva, WI)

Lake Geneva, Photo by Krenda

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat...", we all hear about how the United States Post Office employees deliver mail despite bad weather.  We also hear about the many different transportation methods needed throughout history to transport the mail - horse drawn wagons, airplanes, trucks, etc.  There's stories about mail delivered by bush pilots in Alaska and mule train to the Havasupai Indians at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  To learn more, you can take your kids to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.  

The museum includes an exhibit about the relationship between mail and our national parks "Trailblazing 100 Years of Our National Parks."

Then I heard about an experiential learning opportunity on CBS News Sunday Morning segment in which Bill Geist describes a timeless place where the arrival of summer is announced by the first mailboat.  In Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, mail still gets delivered by boat daily from June to September.  It began approximately 100 years ago before the government built roads around the lake.  Before the summer season, Gage boat company holds tryouts for mail jumpers who will ride the boat, jump onto the pier, put mail in and out of the mailbox, and jump back on the boat.

You can take your kids on the Gage boat tour "U.S. Mailboat Tour".  The 2.5 hour tour takes you on a cruise around Lake Geneva to watch a mail jumper in action.  He or she delivers the mail to about 75 homes on the lake with approximately 160 tourists watching.  The service continues as a free service.  To watch the action on Wadsworth 11, the only mail jumping boat in the U.S., you'll need to pay $38 for adults and $22 for children.

Our mail jumper had skills.  He'd sprint to the mailbox.  At one point, he had to jump off the boat and put mail in an entire row of mailboxes, run about a mile, and time it right to jump back on the moving boat.  He really showed off by jumping off a dock and then doing a cartwheel before placing mail into the box.  Everyone cheered for him.  The residents also seem to enjoy the service.  Some would sit on their pier in big wooden chairs waiting for the mail delivery and waving to the tourists.  Another resident waited by his box for a hand delivery.

Besides the entertainment, the boat emcee provides history lessons about the mansions surrounding the lakes and the famous business families like Wrigley owning them.

Today email works fast.  But think about the years of news delivered by the mailman.  Letters from soldiers, love letters, holiday cards, postcards giving you a glimpse of a place far away.  I still find joy in sending and receiving postcards.  Thanks to the U.S. Postal Service employees for delivering through difficult weather or taking a risk to fall in the lake so residents can open a envelope of joy.