Small Sask. town rallies to preserve historic bridge a decade after its closure

A historic bridge in Saint Louis, Sask., has been given a second life as a walking path after having been shut down over ten years ago.

Access to the former railway bridge was closed in 2014 due to concerns about its structural soundness. But now, it has become a tourist attraction and brought the community together.

The bridge is now an educational walking path that teaches people about the community's rich Métis culture.

Saint Louis is about 100 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

The bridge operated for a century, from 1914 to 2014. It crosses the South Saskatchewan River and acted as the main route north out of Saint Louis toward Prince Albert. It has a railway track in the middle and two extensions for cars.

When it closed in 2014, traffic moved to a new bridge on the east side of town. Construction of that new bridge led to a fascinating discovery.

“That's when they discovered the antique bison,” Michel Dubé, a volunteer with the Saint Louis Historic Society, told CBC.

Crews working on the new bridge found bones in the area. That led to an archeological dig, which turned up the remains of a large antique bison and signs of an Indigenous settlement in the area. The bison remains are estimated to be 100,000 years old and 25 per cent larger than the average bison seen today.

With the new bridge open and the town focused on archeological dig, the old bridge sat untouched for years, full of barricades that Dubé described as an ‘eyesore’.

In 2018, the historic society expressed a desire to keep the old bridge as a tourist attraction.

 “That's when the Saint Louis Historical Society sort of got involved and said, ‘well listen, our town is kind of dying and slowing down economically.’”

“They [said] ‘let's at least get rid of those ugly steel barriers. Then somebody [said] ‘why don't we kind of make it as a walking area across the bridge?’”

The bison became a theme in the revitalization project.

The town now has a statue in the bison's honour, and the entryway to the historic bridge is adorned with an image of a bison's head created by Constant Pollievre, a Fransaskois artist known for his work designing logos for the NHL.