Sepia Saturday 154 Bridges

With a theme of bridges or waters it is easy for me to find photos from our travels over the years and others in family archives.  This got me to thinking and so I share the Capilano Suspension bridge  in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from our 1975 road trip.  That was the year we and friends journeyed from our northern  California homes  to the Calgary Stampede and along the way stopped at Glacier Park; we left our group after Calgary and  went west to Vancouver.  Steve was only 11 and we had a wonderful  three week adventure in our new   pick up truck cab over camper, we'd consider that primitive traveling accommodations  today but then it was the best we  knew of and we were also younger.   

I have always  had an aversion to bridges, don't know why, an unreasonable fear because I grew up in western Pennsylvania where there are bridges across all the rivers and going from place to place meant crossing on the bridges.   Today we live near the mighty Mississippi and my frequent LaCrosse journeys require my driving over the bridges, I still do not like them.  But bridges that I really fear are these so called simple suspension bridges, or for automobiles the open to no railings such as the Mackinaw Bridge we crossed in July this year.  

The Capilano Canyon Suspension bridge is advertised as the 8th wonder of the world, or it was in 1975.  The postcard to the left shows it up there,  230 feet above the  canyon and 450  feet long, or " 140 metres long and 70 metres above the river"  according to their website today. 

 Well to an eleven year old it was just the ticket, a challenge to  run across shouting, "no hands, Mom,  come on out and look" .  But to this mother,  who was  sure that something would snap, sending us all to a bloody demise below, it was a horror.  Jerry and Steve both went back and forth to assure me it was perfectly safe.  Hah!  They were different than me,  no way, the thing was obviously not stable, pedestrians pass another person by and there is a feeling of  the unsteadiness.  I only ventured a very few feet onto it so Jerry could take my picture.  So much for conquering my fears, baloney! 

This was years  before digital cameras, so these photos are fading and are difficult to identify the people up there on the bridge amidst the forest of fir and cedar trees that are thousands of years old.  You will see I am not a happy camper here.

1975  Jerry and Steve in the middle of the Capilano Bridge
They are the two tiny people in the middle behind the couple, closest.
I was taking this photo and recall refusing to get closer

Finally I ventured onto it,  about 5 feet, that is me holding onto
a wobbling rail for dear life, ready to cry as I recall
Steve is ahead of me saying, "Come on Mom you can do it."
He ended up coming to get me, holding my other hand and walking me
back to the mainland.  I was/am a wimp  with  such heights. 

.  From the website today I learned some history.  If you are interested you can link to the site and take their  tour.http://www.capbridge.com/our-story/history/    The Capilano bridge was built in 1889 by George Grant Mackay, a Scottish civil engineer and park commissioner for Vancouver.   The website  site has some excellent photos of him with  his cohorts.   It was originally made of hemp ropes with a deck of cedar planks, and was replaced with a wire cable bridge in 1903. In 1910 Edward Mahon purchased the Capilano Suspension Bridge. "Mac" MacEachran purchased the Bridge from Mahon in 1935 and invited local natives to place their totem poles  in the park, adding a native theme. In 1945, he sold the bridge to Henri Aubeneau.  The bridge was completely rebuilt in 1956.  So what we walked onto in 1975 was already 19 years old but how much worse it could have been back in the 1890's.  The park was sold to Nancy Stibbard, the current owner, in 1983. Annual attendance has since increased, and in May 2004, Treetops Adventures was opened. This new attraction consists of seven footbridges suspended between old-growth Douglas Fir trees on the west side of the canyon, forming a walkway up to 30 metres (98 ft) above the forest floor.  

This is the back of the brochure I found with our photos

  This week's prompt awakened reminiscing of those  long ago days along with a realization that I need to have the old photos scanned else they will fade away.  We had wonderful vacations back then,  we knew it then and we still do today. 

 I imagine there  are going to be many wonderful bridge photos shared this week.  Check out the Sepia site to browse the other responses to the prompt.  http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2012/11/sepia-saturday-154-1-december-2012.html