A newly-completed bridge is the finishing touch on the Greenways Land Trust’s latest trail.
The trail follows along the Jubilee Connector between Dogwood Street and Highway 19A. Prior to completion, the trail had to span the ecologically sensitive Willow Creek so a bridge was required of substantial size and quality. With a grant from the Campbell River Community Foundation for $12,000, the Greenways Land Trust was able to complete the new bridge over the creek and open the trail to the community. The trail is already well in use with a growing number of users providing positive feedback about its accessibility.
The completed bridge measures 131 feet in length. It was built on two steel H beams with over 4,100 linear feet of western red cedar and 250 pounds of spikes. The manpower for the project came from the Land Trust volunteers plus a crew of four displaced forest workers. The crew took a lot of pride in the bridge construction as it was the crowning jewel of the trail. They even took into consideration the cedar grain and aesthetic values.
The Jubilee Connector trail is the second to last section of a 25 km recreation loop around the perimeter of the city. The loop is intended as an alternate transportation route and recreation resource for our community. The last section of the loop, along Highway 19A to the seawalk, is slated for completion in the next year.
For the Campbell River Community Foundation Board, the bridge is the result of their grant funding going to a non-profit that thinks big. The funding for the bridge brought together two local non-profits resulting in a legacy project in our community.