Covered bridge on the Brown river - Westford (Vermont)

Abandoned bridges and other structures over the rivers

Jarold Dumouchel &

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Abandoned bridges and other structures over the rivers

Covered bridges and other beauties

All around (Quebec), Canada

In Quebec, we have built more than 1000 during the last century, but we count today only 88 of them. Covered bridges, a real relic of a time resolved, are unfortunately ill-suited to our modern life. Originally, they were appreciated for various reasons. First, they were built with an abundant resource, wood, and most allowed their owners to charge few bucks to those who wanted to borrow it.

Unfortunately, over the years, many have been abandoned, vandalized, or carried away by unchained flood. Whereas in 1965, there remained 245, that number has dropped dramatically to reach the number 91 in the late 1990s.

Today, the Department of Transportation's mission is to inspect them and see to their maintenance, which stopped the bleeding. If some are still motorable, others have been adapted to bycicle (like the Perrault bridge located in Notre-Dame-des-Pins) or converted into rest area.

The other bridges

Metal bridges like that shown above are reminiscent of the railway bridges. Rare are those who are rebuilt identically. When the structure is considered too risky, they are condemned or replaced by modern concrete structures, without any aesthetic considerations. Keep it simple, as they say! Too simple is often a synonym of ugly!

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