I don’t sleep well.
I can get to sleep just fine. I just don’t sleep long enough.
On Saturday, June 24 I woke up at 5:49 AM (according to FitBit) and, as is typical for me, I was wide awake and not likely to go back to sleep. I decided to go for a drive.
There’s a steel bridge over the Roseau River in the impressively-named Dominion City, about 80 km south of Winnipeg. It’s on the CP Emerson subdivision and is the only sizable bridge on the line other than the concrete one over the Winnipeg Floodway. I visited it on May 24, 2021 but I didn’t photograph the bridge extensively because I was too busy photographing this train passing through it:
It had been in the back of my mind for a while, so why not go see it again?
An hour later, I was parking my car on a street in Dominion City and looking for a way to get close to the bridge. I wanted to get a side shot of the bridge, which meant getting down to river level.
I walked around the south side of the river, looking for an existing path and finding none. I did find a young deer watching me.
Since there was no path, I just walked into the brush and made my way toward the river. There was a lot of dew that morning and my legs quickly became damp. I’m glad I chose to wear proper hiking shoes and long pants!
At least there was a clearing.
Once I reached the river, the hardest part was finding a spot to climb down to water level without slipping into the river, and having a way to get back out!
The bridge consists of a single Howe truss span over the river, with an open deck span on the south end.
Dominion City was the site of a “last spike” ceremony. What is now the CP Emerson subdivision was the first railway line built in what became western Canada. At the time it was known as the Pembina Branch, and it was built from the US border to St. Boniface, now a part of Winnipeg. The last spike was driven on December 3, 1878. The next railway to connect to Winnipeg was the CPR in 1883.
The steam engine “Countess of Dufferin” was shipped by barge to St. Boniface in 1877 and was used to construct the line. It was present at the last spike ceremony. Today the engine is the jewel of the Winnipeg Railway Museum.
There’s also a giant fish in Dominion City, or more precisely a giant sturgeon. This is a full size replica of Manitoba’s largest sturgeon, which was caught here on October 27, 1903. It weighed 406 lbs., was 15.5 feet long and was 150 years old, according to the sign in front of the fish. I didn’t know you could measure a fish’s age, but apparently fish scales have rings like a tree trunk. I learned something today.
It was nice to get a chance to see the bridge again, up close and personal. I feel like I have documented it well enough now.
Speaking of documentation, here’s a drone shot of the bridge from that May 2021 visit that I haven’t shared here yet. The river was higher and muddier then. This view is looking south.
Just One More Thing
If you like train bridges as much as I do, you might like…
