This is the High Level Bridge. If you traverse it by car, it will take you take you due south from downtown Edmonton near the provincial legislature, across the North Saskatchewan River to the university area at the other end.
I traverse it on foot, which means I can go in both directions. And I have done just that, almost every business day for nearly three years. The round trip over the bridge works out to about a mile.
The view from this bridge is breathtaking in every season. The bridge itself is another matter. I have long considered it an eyesore, an abominable thing that stretches over the river like a vast black iron centipede and spews forth bilious streams of pissed-off drivers who are always in too much of a hurry.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, because some years ago, some people thought it would be a good idea to set up a big sprinkler system in the middle of the bridge and call it a waterfall. They call it "The Great Divide." I suppose to some people, this waterfall contraption looks majestic; to me it looks like someone is trying to water a river.
Yet there's something about this bridge that I have never noticed until today: near the north entrance, there's one of those little "point of interest" signposts. It says this bridge was built from 1910 to 1913 at a cost of two million dollars. It also says the bridge's ability to handle four types of traffic made it the first of its kind in Canada.
There's a quaint grandeur in that. Today as I crossed this old bridge, I felt something like affection for it.
[Photo by Artistrea, flickr.com]
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