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BC Archives # A-03538

The Old Bridge

Actually this is about two old bridges, one that's still standing and is a protected heritage site, and another that's been pretty much forgotten locally, as with the old railway bridge. Both were built on the same site, where Mueller's Ferry had been in the days of the gold rush. This is at the narrowed outlet of Lillooet Canyon, below which the river widens into the broad bars around Lillooet and then into the powerful current of the sand-bank canyon that stretches down through Lytton from just below Cayoosh Creek.

The current bridge had until recent times served as the only road bridge across the Fraser between the Alexandra Bridge and Riske Creek, and especially in its later days saw a lot of heavy traffic. It's now barricaded but open to the public and there are picnic tables and a pullout for visitors. Most of the shores of the Fraser from here up to the Bridge River and beyond are reserve, as the rocky canyon from here up for several miles is an important native salmon-fishing location. Visitors to the (new) Old Bridge today will note the many drying racks, even if there's no fishing going on. Just below the bridge there are a few industrial ruins, some from an old mill, others from placer mining, and some old abuttments for the cable stays for Mueller's Ferry remain (? hm - have to check that).

BC Archives # G-00363	BC Archives # I-33349
	BC Archives # I-33341
The bridge and, if it's during a salmon run, there'll probably be some people getting their fish, and those racks will be decked out with stripped and filletted salmon. ][As at the Six Mile fishing grounds at the upper end of Lillooet Canyon, a dried-out stream of desert air of just the right aridity and temperature sucks the moisture out of the fish, wind-curing it in a matter of hours on some days. Local natives also smoke salmon, and especially for double-smoking it into a kind of jerky.][ that on the left being much older and the original one at this location, which is at the outflow of the gorge of the Fraser known as Lillooet Canyon, which runs from the junction of the Bridge River at the Six Mile Rapids to where the river opens up in a broad swathe in front of town. The older bridge at left was not built as part of the original route of the wagon road, which ran to another bridge upstream (which gave the Bridge River its name), but was built in the 1870s (?) after a road was finally constructed around the flank of Fountain Ridge to connect with the route leading north from the Bridge River Bridge. The BC Archives documentation for this image gives its date as in the 1920s, but this must be in error as the "newer" suspension bridge dates from the mid-1910s. The bridge on the right, which is a cable-suspension span similar to those at Alexandria (north of Yale) and Soda Creek (north of Williams Lake) was also built by the Royal Engineers, as was so much in early British Columbia, but dates from the 1910s. It is no longer in use for vehicular traffic today, but still stands as part of a local heritage park and forms part of a walking/biking loop from town using the newer "Bridge of the 23 Camels". The rocks on either side of the bridge are part of the native fishing grounds, and the racks and scaffolding used for the native fishery are readily observable on a walk across the bridge. More pictures of this bridge from various angles follow. The horse-drawn wagon at right is the Lillooet-Lytton stage, which it is important to remember would have approached this bridge via the Fountain Valley and Fountain - rather than by the route of today's Highway 12 - because of the then-impassable Big Slide.

Photo: Mike Cleven	Photo: Mike Cleven
Photo: Mike Cleven	BC Archives # D-01680, Bridges at Lillooet
BC Archives # F-08980	BC Archives # I-57554
Aerial pic from Photos by Kat	BC Archives # I-33340
Photo: E. Cleven	Photo: Mike Cleven
Aerial pic from Photos by Kat
Photo: E. "Andy" Cleven