The Brussels - Rupel canal was completed in the half of the 16th century. In Klein Willebroek (Little Willebroek), the watercourse led to the Rupel, a wide tidal river that immediately connected to the Scheldt and thus to the seaport of Antwerp. The watercolor shows a scene of the bridge with behind it, early 20th century, when all shipping still had to go along this waterway. The then seesaw bridge appears to be an impressive construction for lifting the short single-lane bridge deck. It was at this place that skippers hired boat tractors (towers), after sometimes long negotiations about the price, for their journey to the unloading and loading places along the canal. This tour could, often over narrow towpaths, go to Brussels 30 km away. Spicy detail: the lady in the front takes buckets of water out of the canal, a custom I remember as a child. Until the 1960s, the residents of the dykes cleaned and scrubbed with canal water, a practice that is prohibited today (!?!?). Major infrastructure works, started in the early twentieth century, aimed at making the channel accessible to sea-going vessels, replacing locks and widening and deepening the channel, albeit interrupted by the First World War. A new channel arm was constructed from nearby Willebroek with a larger lock in Wintam, which was completed in 1922. This made the Klein Willebroek lock useless for commercial shipping. Today Klein Willebroek is a popular destination for walkers and cyclists who enjoy the terraces and restaurants in the summer, there is a museum in honor of the boat tractors, a new horrible seesaw and the small lock was renovated for the marina behind it. Image size: 260 x 360 mm