The return to McKinnon Bridge

Back in May of 2009, P-Doug and I took this trek into the Minesing Wetlands with our ultimate goal being to glimpse a bridge apparently out in the middle of nowhere across the Nottawasaga River. That trek was apparently a second attempt all on its own.

Since that time, we've made two subsequent attempts at it that failed. Once was in August a few years ago, when the grasses had simply become positively Amazonian and they turned us back. Another attempt was earlier in the year, sometime in May again, but it was a wet May and the foliage turned us back again.

We decided to take another crack at it, and Wednesday afternoon just past, we finally succeeded in making our second expedition to the iron bridge on old abandoned McKinnon Road.

The whole thing has a bit of a personal significance to me. You might notice my handle is "barefoot hiker". Well, that's a real thing. I like to take the trails that way, if I can. It's called "grounding", and it's got a bit of a following here in North America. It's considerably more popular in Europe, especially Germany. I mention this because that first successful trek to McKinnon bridge, way back in May, 2009, wasn't the first time I ever hiked barefoot; not by a long shot... but it was the first time I ever dared to do it leaving my sandals behind. "Sydney or the bush!", as Charles M. Schulz used to have the kids say in Peanuts; all or nothing. So, of course, I absolutely had to take this trek the same way, no matter what. And I did. Somewhat challenging in places; especially over the dry cellulose of last year's dead reed grass; but I came through it just fine. At the end of it all, I measured the hike on Google Maps and was pleased to discovered we'd gone 4.3 km, or roughly 2 2/3 miles.

So here is the route. Today...

And in 1954.

So without further ado, here's a condensed digest of our trek to the bridge.

Here we are at the bridge itself.

And on the way back, we stopped to have a look at the old ruins beside the river.

Exploring the old course of Lloydtown-Aurora Road

So to any of you who still read this thing... (hi, Jim! Maybe?) ...here's how it happened. :)

P-Doug and I were up in Pottageville in York Region on Sunday to hike the closed part of 7th Concession. It's a broad, smooth trail that I've valued for years and it's particularly lovely in the fall.  In the course of it, we were travelling along Lloydtown-Aurora Road, a fairly minor and yet reasonably-travelled road with an interchange with the 400 a few kilometres to the east. The first thing that happened was that P-Doug pointed out a small stretch of old asphalt to the north side that suggested a minor course correction at some point in the past. Shortly after that, I happened to glance to the north and caught sight of a tiny but striking little bridge across a creek a few dozen metres away. Now that was exciting. We even went off the main road to drive the old stretch to the north, which is still open and in pretty good shape. We drove across the little bridge and out to the other side.

 

Getting home, I checked out the aerial view on Google Maps, and sure enough, it was obvious there were little roads off to the side. I also noticed, to the south of the road, there was another curve of lost asphalt. I surmised there'd been a fairly major realignment at some point in the past.

This is what the area looks like today...

Playing a hunch, I looked up the 1954 aerials of southern Ontario the University of Waterloo makes available and saw that this was what the same area looked like back in the mid-1950s.

I was delighted to see I'd called the shot. I'd taken Wednesday off, so yesterday we went back out there to have a look. The image below shows the old course of Lloydtown-Aurora Road (as seen above) in red. The rest of the images here are the shots we took of the old little bridge, and then walking the closed and decaying curve to the south.

Heading west from the 400, we actually managed to miss the road the first time. Turning around at Hwy 27, we headed back east and found the eastern access to the old road on the north. We indulged in crossing the bridge and driving the old stretch a couple of times before parking to take shots of the old bridge itself.

The view below faces south from just north of the current course of Lloydtown-Aurora Road.

Just around the curve is the old bridge itself.

I stepped down off the old road to take photos of the south side of the bridge over the creek (the name of which I have no idea).

Returning to the road, I shot the north side of the bridge from across the road.

Last shots of the south side as I came back up.

I missed getting video of this guy crossing the bridge. I think a lot of people just gratuitously slip off the current route of Lloydtown-Aurora Road to indulge themselves in this short little trip back to a simpler time for 30 seconds or so. I know I would if I lived around there.

 

Meanwhile, P-Doug was getting shots of the bridge and the north side...

It would seem the bridge was built in 1916. I have no real idea when the new realignment was built, but given what I know about the province and the area, I'd put a hefty wager on sometime in the 1960s. I'd be surprised if it were even as late as the 1970s.

P-Doug surmised that this little building once housed a mechanism for monitoring the flow of the creek here. It appears to have been gutted for some time.

 

A look southward from the old alignment to the current one at the crest of the rise.

Your humble correspondent, doing his thing for the blog and posterity. :)

After this, we crossed Lloyd-Aurora Road and headed east a few dozen metres to a driveway intersecting the old southern swoop of the original alignment, deciding to see if we could find the old road course visible on the aerial shots. It seemed a bit iffy at first, but once we reached the driveway, we saw the old course and realized we could.

This view is from the driveway, looking back east to the current alignment.

P-Doug took the two shots below, looking back from the old course toward the current one. I was in front of him, and apparently he had the presence of mind to shoot mostly looking back the way we'd come, while I was focused on shooting straight ahead.

 

A shot of mine looking westward from the same location.

 

A rare backward shot of mine, capturing P-Doug capturing stuff looking forward.

One of his backward-looking shots, below.

 

One of my shots again, facing west, nearing the end of the course.

Another shot looking back.

Approaching the end of the old alignment and the intersection with the current one.

Shots looking back the way we'd come...

 

Arriving at the current course of Lloydtown-Aurora road. This view looks easterly.

Looking across the current alignment to the old one. That's the place where we turned in off the road to drive to the little 1916 bridge.

Looking back from the northern half of the old alignment across the new one to the course we'd just walked through the trees.

 

Finally, I asked P-Doug to let me video him driving across the bridge. Who knows how much longer this will be possible? A hundred years? Fifty? Ten? Pottageville is already attracting new development. In any case, I'm glad we have this.