Tuesday 6 December 2011

The Bridges

Postcards came from Saskatchewan.

The lady's grandfather was a member of the Veteran's Guard in WWII and escorted prisoner's of war from Eastern Canada to the mountain areas in British Columbia.

Our guess is he stopped in Nipigon and purchased these photos as a memento.

The first streamline train to cross the bridge.
Note only the railway bridge existed so this is before 1937.


These are the two bridges spanning the Nipigon River,
dated September 1937.

E.C. Everette was the photographer ,
 and likely the seller from his store on Front Street.




Both these photos show the small dock that is up-stream from the bridges. This dock was where the tram cars and supplies were loaded on barges to go up the Nipigon River( circa 1905 to 1910) to Alexander Landing , then off-loaded to the Tramway line that went on to South Bay on Lake Nipigon. From South Bay the Tramway cars and supplies were barged across almost 90 miles of Lake Nipigon to Ombabika Bay and the Little Jackfish River mouth. There a short Tramline went north to the construction site of the Northern Transcontinental Railway.

In later years pulpwood was dumped into the Nipigon River from Canadian National (CN) flatcars.

This particular stretch of CN line (from Long Lac to Thunder Bay) was removed in 2010 - almost one hundred years from the time it was built under the Canadian Pacific Bridge (CPR).

2 comments:

  1. I would be very interested in seeing any old photos or Everette postcards that show the various native families from Longlac, Red Rock, Heron Bay/Pic River, and Mobert. I have some that my great aunt gave me showing our Finlayson family members coming down to Nipigon on their way to Pic but they are old and not very clear. One even has my g-g-grandfather Nick Finlayson in a canoe at Longlac. Does the museum have any of these minds of vintage photos or postcards?

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    Replies
    1. Yes we have lots of ECE photos but short on names to go with them. Places I can find and maybe post those on FB if you can access that?

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