A lift for boats : Les Fontinettes

A few miles from Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais), Arques, a city well known for its crystal glassworks, is an important port situated at the crossing of two waterways : Aa river and canal de Neufosse. Les Fontinettes was a boat lift [1] built on the Neufosse canal in 1887 in place of the five previous locks (difference of level : 13,13 m). Les Fontinettes was in use until 1967. Two barges at the same time could enter the Fontinettes former lift, each into one of the water-filled locks, set upon two enormous pistons [2] ; it worked like a pair of hydraulic scales : one of the locks moved up with its barge inside while the second one was reaching the lower level of the canal. Nowadays the Fontinettes engine room is opened to visitors and offers an animated model. A gigantic lock has been built upstream : it can house six barges that move up or down in only twenty minutes.

Saint-Omer is worth visiting. In its surroundings, the Marais Audomarois is devoted, just as the Amiens "hortillons", to market-gardening on pieces of land crosscut by watergangs (waterways). It is a nice route to reach in fine the Opal Coast near the Two Capes [3] [4] : Cape Blanc-Nez near Calais and the Eurotunnel, and Gris-Nez southway on the coast.

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