Sprinkled across the province's waterways, New Brunswick's many covered bridges have long been a subject of history and pride. In New Brunswick's Covered Bridges, Brian Atkinson takes us on a photographic tour of these wooden masterpieces, from the Hartland Bridge, the longest covered bridge in the world, to smaller bridges such as the Maxwell Crossing Bridge. Atkinson's delightful photos capture different sizes, shapes, and styles of these magnificent structures, while short write-ups provide history and highway directions. With these bridges slowly succumbing to decay, natural disasters, and even arson, New Brunswick's Covered Bridges is an invaluable photographic collection of a bygone era.
A new release of a perennial favourite! No Faster Than a Walk: The Covered Bridges of New Brunswick has been the definitive book on the subject for nine years, and the updated edition continues the tradition. With text, pictures, and engineering drawings, No Faster Than a Walk explains how New Brunswick's covered bridges were built, and it brims with anecdotes about the people who constructed and used them. The covered bridge at Hartland, the longest in the world, almost wasn't covered. The townspeople understood the term "kissing bridge" all too well, and they feared that covering the bridge would encourage their young folks to go astray. But practicality won the day: "If the morals of the young people are so badly bent that it only requires a covered bridge to break them completely, there is little we, as the Government, can do about the matter." No Faster Than a Walk includes the plans for this famous bridge, as well as new and old photos. "No faster than a walk" was the speed limit for horses crossing covered bridges. Many were demolished to make way for modern ones, and others have fallen to vandalism. John Gillis's photos document bridges still in existence in the early 1980s, and archival photos show the craftsmanship and beauty of those that have vanished. A dramatic photo in No Faster Than a Walk captures the growing shell of the Colter Transplant Bridge just before it collapsed into the water, a victim of Halloween arsonists. Many of the 67 bridges that remain today are pictured in No Faster Than a Walk, and a map tells explorers where to find them.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, covered bridges dotted the landscape of New Jersey, providing safe passage to travelers. Forty-five covered bridges once crossed waterways in all corners of the state. Perhaps the most extraordinary examples of these wooden bridges were found along the western border, crossing the Delaware River into neighboring Pennsylvania. These bridges were feats of construction and engineering but were ultimately unable to prevent the inevitable fate of almost all the covered bridges of the state, namely ice, floods, and fire as well as the development of new materials and technology. Today, only one covered bridge survives in New Jersey. The Green Sergeant's covered bridge in Hunterdon County was constructed over the Wickecheoke Creek in 1872 and has stood the test of time. New Jersey's Covered Bridges showcases the rich transportation history of these structures and pictorially honors the lost ones.
As many as 15,000 covered bridges were built in North America over the past 200 years. Fewer than 1,000 remain. In America's Covered Bridges, authors Terry E. Miller and Ronald G. Knapp tell the fascinating story of these bridges, how they were built, the technological breakthroughs required to construct them and above all the dedication and skill of their builders. Each wooden bridge, whether still standing or long gone, has a story to tell about the nature of America at the time--not only about its transportational needs, but the availability of materials and the technological prowess of the people who built it. Illustrated with some 550 historical and contemporary photos, paintings, and technical drawings of nearly 400 different covered bridges, America's Covered Bridges offers five readable chapters on the history, design and fate of America's covered bridges, plus related bridges in Canada. Most of the contemporary photography is by master photographer A. Chester Ong of Hong Kong. 55 photo essays on the most iconic bridges including: Cornish-Windsor Bridge between Vermont and New Hampshire Porter-Parsonsfield Bridge, Maine East Paden and West Paden (Twin Bridges), Pennsylvania Philippi Bridge, West Virginia Hortons Mill Bridge, Alabama Medora Bridge, Indiana Rock Mill Bridge, Ohio Knight's Ferry Bridge, California Perrault Bridge, Quebec, Canada Hartland Bridge, New Brunswick, Canada Over time, wooden bridges eventually gave way to ones made of iron, steel and concrete. An American icon, many covered bridges became obsolete and were replaced—others simply decayed and collapsed. Many more were swept away by natural disasters and fires. America's Covered Bridges is absolutely packed with fascinating stories and information passionately told by two leading experts on this subject. The book will be of tremendous interest to anyone interested in American history, carpentry and technological change.
The unusual thing about in the shelter of the covered bridge is the unity of focus the poet-artist-biologist has achieved with this book. While each element of the book has its own narrative stance, the poems, the drawings, and the natural history notes come together in a way that has an appealing and satisfying unity for ear, eye, and mind. Jane is not a poet who puts all her aesthetic eggs in one basket. She moves easily between modes of expression. She is a connoisseur of land and life, an emissary for the intertwining stories of natural history and human culture. Readers attracted by the poems and drawings pick up a good deal of natural and cultural history as well. Readers attracted to the natural and cultural history have their knowledge graced with the sounds of wind and water, and with the images of plants and animals that live "in the shelter of the covered bridge." With her poetic, artistic, and research skills steering the ship, Jane is now sailing out once again into the geographic by-ways and cultural history of the province. She has a similar book project under way on the environments and cultural settings of one-room schoolhouses. I have no doubt she will offer up another voyage for ear, eye, and mind, and that we will again be culturally enriched by her inspiration and good efforts.
Alabama's covered bridges are reminiscent of a more romantic time, when people rode in horse-drawn buggies and couples stole kisses beneath their roofs. But they are also keepers of history--structures built by former slaves and Civil War soldiers. Such places are steeped in legend, including tales of ghostly children and the hanging of a sheriff turned outlaw. Just eleven historic covered bridges survive in Alabama--the oldest dating to the 1850s--but dozens of more recently constructed spans dot the landscape. Wil Elrick and Kelly Kazek provide photos and detailed information on more than fifty Alabama bridges, reveal the fate of the state's lost bridges and delve into the haunting legends surrounding these nostalgic structures.
Renowned travel writer and TV host Robin Esrock has explored every inch of Canada’s Prairies to craft the definitive Bucket List. From food and culture to nature and adrenaline rushes, Robin has the inspiration and information you’ll need to follow in his footsteps and discover everything Manitoba and Saskatchewan have to offer.
Covered Bridges are historic pieces of American and Canadian rural history, gracing the countryside from Oregon to Tennessee and from California to New Brunswick and across Canada. In this lavishly illustrated volume Joseph D. Conwill recounts the rich, romantic history of covered bridges as they developed from early timber bridges, born out of the traditions of Medieval times, into modernized structures designed for the motorized traffic of the early twentieth century. Reflecting on the efforts to keep covered bridges in service as the face of the rural landscape is transformed, and the challenge of preserving their historic character while making them safe for modern traffic, Conwill guides the reader across the diverse range of covered bridges to be found throughout the North America.
Bridges are some of the most fascinating structures in our landscape, and they come in all forms. From towering suspension bridges to humble stone crossings, this book visits them all in sweet, bouncing text with expository sidebars. But while bridges can be quite grand, this reminds us that their main purpose is bringing people together. This is perfect for budding architects, as well as readers who can relate to having loved ones who live far away.
In this critically acclaimed Maine classic, first published in 1945, Helen Hamlin writes of her adventures teaching school at a remote Maine lumber camp and then of living deep in the Maine wilderness with her game warden husband. Her experiences are a must-read for anyone who loves the untamed nature and wondrous beauty of Maine's north woods and the unique spirit of those who lived there. In the 1930s, in spite of being warned that remote Churchill Depot was 'no place for a woman', the remarkable Helen Hamlin set off at age twenty to teach school at the isolated lumber camp at the headwaters of the Allagash River. She eventually married a game warden and moved deeper into the wilderness. In her book, Hamlin captures that time in her life, complete with the trappers, foresters, lumbermen, woods folk, wild animals, and natural splendour that she found at Umsaskis Lake and then at Nine Mile Bridge on the St. John River.
