Instagram Worthy: Alexandra Bridge
byIf you’ve ever been on a road trip through the Fraser Canyon then you’ve been past Spuzzum, the notoriously tiny town along Highway 1 that you can literally miss if you blink. Just past Spuzzum, 3.4km up the road to be exact, you’ll find Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park, and one of the most Instagram-worthy photo locations in the canyon.
Alexandra Bridge
Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park is 2 hours east of Vancouver on Highway 1. The Alexandra Bridge you see today was built in 1926, when the Cariboo Wagon Road was upgraded for automobiles. Author Michael Kluckner sheds some light on its history:
“The old (actually, the second) Alexandra Bridge, unused by vehicles since 1964, provides the last physical evidence of the scale of highways and bridges in the Fraser Canyon – indeed, on the Trans Canada highway in BC – in the 1950s and before. The bridge is accessible by a path, which is in fact the old highway, that winds down the hillside from the modern highway just east of the new Alexandra Bridge and almost within sight of the Alexandra Lodge.
It is alarmingly narrow and, with its open-weave metal decking, not an experience for anyone prone to vertigo. The concrete in the towers is badly spalled and the cables are rusty but so far adequately strong. It will probably fall down soon and be declared unsafe, perhaps in that order, for no government has seen fit to pay attention to it by restoring it as a tourist attraction and perhaps tying it in with some of the surrounding historic trails and places like the lodge. As is the case throughout the Fraser Canyon, it has looked very shabby since the opening of the Coquihalla highway (#5) in 1986.”
The third Alexandra Bridge, which is currently in use, sits in view from the old Alexandra Suspension Bridge. You can access the old, insta-famous bridge by way of a trail from the provincial park’s parking lot.
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