Spindly spansPrince Edward Island and New Brunswick, Canada

Confederation Bridge sketch by Chandler O'Leary

To continue this week’s bridge theme, let’s head north and check out a couple of Canadian feats of engineering. These two bridges have very little in common with one another—except that they both kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies.

I think the main thing was the sheer distances spanned here, by two relatively skinny structures. In the case of the Confederation Bridge that connects Prince Edward Island to the mainland, the span is eight miles long. That’s comparable to some of the wider stretches of salt water in Washington state, but thanks to the water depth here, you won’t find bridges like that around my neck of the woods. So even though the crossing to PEI took just a few minutes, it felt like traversing a little ocean.

World's longest covered bridge sketch by Chandler O'Leary

And as for the world’s longest covered bridge? Well, now that was freaky. And creaky. And saggy. And rattly. And…well…long. It took me almost as long to walk across the Hartland Bridge and back as it did to drive the Confederation Bridge—plenty of time to freak out a little bit. (My fear of heights didn’t help, either.)

But you already know I have a major thing for covered bridges. Heck, I’d already crossed the entire province of New Brunswick just to see this one thing. This was definitely not the moment to chicken out.

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Comments (1)

  1. Marialena

    Bridges, bridges. As everyday reality, engineering feats, and metaphors, they make a big fat potent package. And you’ve chosen two amazing examples. Both are long and Canadian, but they are almost opposites in the feel conveyed by the artwork. One is an arching parenthesis containing smaller parentheses that root into the ground. The other is a tunnel of wooden slats, almost daring you to enter its maw. I can relate to heebie-jeebies in both cases. 🙂

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