Bridge MB002 in Mapleton is visible from Cheryl Molenaar’s dining room window. In her house, it’s known as ‘Nanna’s Bridge.’
“When we built the house, we considered the dining table and being able to see the bridge from where the house sits,” said Cheryl, who moved to the property with her husband and young children in the mid-90s. “That was the beginning of it all.”
Daughter Jess Molenaar, whose children have re-named it ‘Nanna’s Bridge,’ said her memories growing up would be “really different looking out (the) window without the bridge.”
“I’m so used to looking at the bridge…it’s like that’s my chair and that’s my bridge,” said Cheryl. “It’d just be morning and night without it.”
Function versus funds
One of almost 1,000 bridges in various states of ill-repair across Wellington County, a recent draft of Mapleton’s budget book found rehabilitating ‘Nanna’s Bridge’ will cost $1,406,444 between 2024/2025.
But as some municipalities continue to deliberate on their bridge problems, some residents feel it’s important for council to remember there’s more to a bridge than its price tag.
On warm Sundays in the summer when the window is open, Jess said it’s common to hear the “clip clop” of Mennonite horse and buggies taking the bridge to and from church.
Crossing the bridge during an interview, a school bus travels the bridge twice a day to service a house at the end of the sideroad.
Across the bridge, a neighbouring farmer would have to reroute to access his business on the opposite side.
There’s even a geocache tucked under one side — attracting visitors from across the GTA.
For Cheryl, it’s about staying connected to her family and civilization despite her rural location.
Driving to Listowel for work, picking up her grandchildren from school and offering easy access to her family in Palmerston, the bridge is essential to keeping the Molenaar family connected and is illustrated through decades of family photos.
“When we were looking for property, we were adamant about staying in the township and now here we are,” said Cheryl. “I always said we moved to the edge of the township and now they’re making me feel like ‘let’s just leave her down there.’”
For Jess, the bridge is a safety matter – providing access to emergency services and a clear way to her mom in the event of snowstorms.
“I would be trapped literally in the winter because there’s a huge drift always at the end of the driveway turning left,” said Cheryl. “That [loss of access] would be huge and actually kind of scary for me.”
Why build a bridge in the first place?
Although it’s hard to go back decades and define what the intention was with building all these bridges, Good Roads executive director Scott Butler said they’ve effectively always connected communities in a way that would have been unimaginable in the past.
“We are lucky to have that infrastructure because we can have access to paved roads and [the community] but still live close to nature,” said Jess. “To me, thinking of all those bridges closing is like then everyone has to be in town in a more heavily populated area.”
The result of this in a rural geographic area is a transportation network far larger and more expensive to maintain than if it were in an urban setting, making bridge work an eye-catching option when it comes to making cuts in a municipal budget.
“The reasons for that are twofold, one they’re expensive and two it’s easy to realize a short-term gain in a municipal budget at a long term expense,” Butler said. “The accumulation of those decisions since those assets went in, say since the 1950s, all appear to be coming home to roost simultaneously.”
Constructed in 1910, Bridge MB002, more well-known as the Mallet River Bridge, is the oldest steel truss bridge in Mapleton, according to an inventory done for the Grand River Conservation Authority in 2013.
“Aside from its early date of construction, this bridge is unique due to the decorative reinforced concrete railings with chamfered balustrades found on each end of the trusses,” said the report. “The thin wooden boards used to set the concrete on-site during construction are still visible.”
Calling bridges an “endangered species,” the inventory said bridges represent an “important component” of human heritage, representing an evolution in building materials and techniques, as well as reflecting the aesthetics of the time.
“Bridges are one class of heritage structures that are particularly important to our understanding of the cultural landscape around us,” said the document. “Few other types of human-built features are as iconic and can be considered landmarks as often as bridges.”
However, in many cases, “decisions to demolish a heritage structure are made without knowledge that it is important.”
Butler also noted across the province municipalities have been under-investing in this kind of infrastructure – something Cheryl stopped complaining about for fear the municipality would just close her bridge.
But even on the rare occasion when she did approach the roads department with her concerns, suggesting the bridge “needed some TLC,” Cheryl Molenaar said she was often met with the attitude of: “Well, it’ll probably be closed in a few years.”
Cheryl even remembers the last time the bridge was closed for repairs 23 years ago because the family paid $1,600 to pave the road to their driveway and avoid traversing the gravel.
Even now, Cheryl said she doesn’t drive the gravel road “at all,” taking the highway and driving to the next paved road over in the event a gravel road is the suggested route.
“It’s the bridge,” Cheryl said. “It’s kind of a historic thing to me like it’s not really just a means across the water.”
But its history might not be enough to save it, as local historian Pat Mestern herself has witnessed.
Charlie’s bridges
Mestern’s grandfather, Charlie Mattaini immigrated from Italy to West Garafraxa in the late 1800s where he started a construction company, experimenting with decorative garden statues of naked women and brewing wine before trying his hand at bridges.
Designing and constructing more than 70 bridges and culverts of varying sizes, many of which were variations of what is now known as a bowstring bridge, were built across Ontario between 1902 and 1930, with most spanning waters in Wellington County.
“Back then, every stream and every river had to have a bridge,” said Mestern. “Bridges were really necessary, just to make sure the land actually was able to accommodate the people who wanted to live on it and wanted to own it.”
While he’d never constructed a bridge before, Mattaini wanted to leave his impact on Canada and bridges were how he did it.
According to Mestern, the design of the upper structure was both a salute to his home country, where many of these bridges remain and his contribution to Canada’s built heritage and natural landscape, which he’d fallen in love with.
“It's very sad to see these bridges fall into disrepair,” said Mestern. “What he actually gave to Ontario through his design, it's really beautiful.”
Like many of the county’s oldest bridges, the number of remaining Mattaini bridges, local landmarks Mestern said used to attract buses of tourists, are in the teens as they’ve been left to deteriorate.
This is the worst-case scenario for the Molenaars and their bridge.
In an ideal world, Cheryl would have the township preserve the bridge in whatever way they could but she’d be happy with a more cost-effective solution to continue access.
At one point, a culvert was suggested but the idea was never followed through.
“I would hope that they can repair it and keep it somewhat in the same look it is,” said Cheryl. “Do I care if it’s a culvert? I don’t know. But closed versus culvert? I’d take the culvert.”
“It wouldn’t look very nice but it’s better than not having access at all,” said Jess. “Having no access would be huge.”
