Remains in the river
The flood of 2008 reminds us that we are not here for long, and all of what we build, no matter how well, will eventually fall to the ground or the river bottom someday.
I was born in late 1970, but I remember the great St. John River flood that temporarily transformed my hometown into Venice in the spring of 1973 as though it happened yesterday. As a curious two-and-a-half year old, the strange experience of canoeing with my father around our half-submerged Barkers Point house across from Fredericton and skirting the neighbourhood's sunken cars seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime encounter - that is, until last week.
Floods, and most natural disasters for that matter, inevitably make us look at our built surroundings in a different light. The current St. John River flood is no exception. While spring freshets are a regular occurrence along the entire river valley, as soon as the news anchors muttered "levels that may equal or exceed those of 1973," the citizens of Fredericton and its outlying regions sprung into action to protect themselves, their buildings, and their property from the rising waters like an expert squad of Marines.
While the effects of the disaster will be felt for some time, and my heart goes out to those who encountered severe damage, things could easily have been much worse. From the recent cyclone that battered Burma to the cataclysmic devastation of New Orleans caused by hurricane Katrina in 2005, where most of the city was leveled and half of the population has yet to return, there is little question that nature is the ultimate boss.
With such incidents and the inevitable rising sea levels due to climate change, how we build and where we build will be one of the key questions facing us in the future. The events of the past week have made me contemplate the St. John River and aspects of its built structure that line its usually serene banks.
As Alden Nowlan poetically observed, the St. John River is stunningly beautiful; even when its seasonal nature compromises our ideas of cleanliness and steadfastness. The river was first known as the Wolastoq, or "the beautiful river," whose valley has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Maliseet, or Wolastoqiyik, the people of this river. They summered on the river's islands and banks punctuated by meadows, berry bogs, salmon pools and small brooks, and they surely awaited the annual deluge. It was Samuel de Champlain who explored the mouth of this great river on St. Jean Baptiste Day, June 24, 1604, and so named it "la Rivière St. Jean."
The river quickly became the main transportation and communications route through the centre of the province, and while a full account of the architectural history of the St. John River valley would take volumes, a series of structures that lie on the cusp of what we often consider architecture gives a fascinating glimpse into the development of human activity along its watery path.
The old CNR railway bridge crossing the St. John River at Fredericton has become one of the city's most treasured features. Over 10 years ago it was transformed into a walking bridge and on a summer evening there is no better place to enjoy the blazing sunsets crowning the crimson sky. While most pedestrians associate the bridge with calm walks, a number of Fredericton's older citizens still remember the events of March 19, 1936, when the original bridge that stood in the same location was ripped from its piers by a massive ice jam that caused one of the worst floods in New Brunswick's history.
As anyone who lives in the upper St. John River valley will attest, large spring ice jams are an annual hazard that cause huge stresses; both on the onlookers and on the bridges that span the river. While the modern dams at Mactaquac and Beechwood have limited such buildups along the lower river, on that March day in 1936 the ice was so severe it rose nine metres in the air near the railway bridge and caused the water to rise at a rate of 10 centimetres per hour, pouring through the downtown in the capital city by the late afternoon. Just before its steel trusses were plunged to the bottom of the river and the ice jam broke, the water increased its height at a rate of 30 centimetres per hour.
While no one was injured in the wreckage, the event caused a huge interruption in rail service to the city as the new bridge was not completed until 1938. It was virtually identical to the old one except that it was two metres higher, for obvious reasons. The bottom line is that the engineering and form of the present steel structure is largely due to a spring flood more than 70 years ago.
Before the proliferation of cars and highways, riverboats were a prevalent mode of transport in the province, and a network of concrete wharves still line the lower St. John River every few miles from Maugerville, just below Fredericton, to Grand Bay and Rothesay. Built to replace their wooden forerunners which serviced farmers and travellers, the concrete structures were designed by the federal Department of Public Works during the 1930s. They feature a number of clever design elements such as tapered upstream walls to tolerate and break up ice jams, and multiple gangway levels to accommodate the boats docking at rising water levels.
While some of the wharves are still in good condition, like the 1937 example at Maugerville, many others are succumbing to the ravages of time and the incessant sway of the active water. These unique constructions from the commercial glory days of the river have the form and vigour of an ancient ziggurat with their concrete horns, steel rings and sloping walls; but left unmaintained they can only last so long.
Striking a balance between the first two examples are a series of concrete bridge ruins along the river that are as evocative of past eras as any work of architecture I have encountered. On tributaries just a stone's throw from the St. John River, a number of structures deemed obsolete due to accidents or natural causes embody a romantic quality that is remarkable and mysterious.
The old concrete bridge between Barkers Point and Devon on Fredericton's north side was completed in 1942 to replace a series of wooden bridges which connected both sides of the Nashwaak River. The sophisticated Art Deco styling of the period is visible in the arched geometry and tapered lamppost, showing that the Deco style was as popular with infrastructure as it was with public buildings. After a transport truck fell through one of the spans in the mid 1960s, the bridge was replaced by the present one downriver and its lonely bare piers and entry spans are hidden in brush along now-quiet streets.
Bridging the Oromocto River waterway between the town and its western embankment are several instances of abandoned bridge piers that, like the riverboat wharves, have an aura of archaic ruins. Nearly adjacent to each other, two such instances - one of stone, the other of concrete - were built for long-removed bridges that led towards Fredericton. They were both swing bridges with a central span that pivoted on a round central pier to allow boats to pass through. The stone example is noticeably undermined by a poor foundation and is presently leaning so much it has almost collapsed; like a Leaning Tower of Pisa succumbing to a New Brunswick river.
The flood of 2008 reminds us that time and nature are two constants that we have to consider architecturally, whether in a building's planning stages or its long-abandoned twilight. We are not here for long, and all of what we build, no matter how well, will eventually fall to the ground or the river bottom someday.
John Leroux is an architect and art historian who lives in Fredericton. He can be reached at johnnyleroux@hotmail.com.
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