Irish River No.1 (Vaughan Creek)

June 29, 2017

We had a family outing to the Fundy Trail Parkway today and while the visiting relations explored the caves at St.Martins after lunch, I went back and got some pictures of the bridge.  There was a work crew on site, but the bridge was completely open to traffic.  We didn't know what to expect after the recent news reports of this being the latest bridge in the province to fail inspection (see CBC news link below).  There was a pile of steel beams beside the bridge, that I presume has been brought in to use for repairs.   I will follow the story and add information here as it unfolds.

Of the most interest to me, this was the first time I'd been in St.Martins at low tide, so I scrambled down into the mud to get a few profile photographs of the bridge from the harbor floor.  All eyes of the work crew were on me, as they must have wondered if I was someone official, or perhaps from the media.

By the time we returned from our trip along the Parkway, the tide was high and the road crew had clocked off, and the light was brighter too, so I took a few more pictures.

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CBC news story, June 27, 2017: Much-photographed St. Martins covered bridge fails inspection

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Good news!  Back to full working order - CBC news story July 12, 2017:  Reinforced St. Martins covered bridge able to carry full buses again

March 27th, 2016

My first visit to St. Martins in the off season.

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Pictures from my first visit, around 2010, long before the blog was conceived.

Tynemouth Creek

June 29, 2017  

At last, we returned to this beauty to try and get some better pictures of the bridge.  Once again, we were on our way to lunch in St. Martins and a trip along the Fundy Trail Parkway, and the family was indulging me in the side-trip to Tynemouth Creek.   The day was still dull and overcast in the morning when these were taken, not my favorite conditions for photographing covered bridges.  Tynemouth Creek is a tidal river, and as with the Irish River bridge in St. Martins today, I was able to scramble down and get some profile pictures from the muddy bottom of the river as the tide was out.

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July 19, 2014

We stopped here on the way to St. Martins for the day to have a quick visit to the bridge.  This was pre-blog days and it is on my list to be revisited to get some better photographs.  

Irish River No.2 (Hardscrabble)

There are two covered bridges in St. Martins, the only place in the province that still has bridges so close to one another.  They cross the Irish River as is empties into the harbor on the Bay of Fundy, and they are sometimes put in peril during storms when there are very high tides.  It looks like they will need to be raised soon, or become almost certain victims to the higher water levels associated with climate change.  I've added a photograph below that I took from the Village of St. Martins Facebook page from October 29th, 2015.  I don't know who to credit it to - sorry.

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March 27th, 2016 - 

Our first ever 'off-season' visit to St. Martins, on Easter Sunday.  It was a gorgeous day and there were lots of other people out for a drive as well.  I noticed that there is a dam-like structure just upstream from this bridge, but can't find anything about it on any related websites.  I assume it is for flood control, or to block large ice chunks or trees from coming down and wrecking the bridge?