Trains, Plains and a Beautiful Bridge

Thunderbird Viaduct is the official name but I only learned this from the library. We all call it the 4^th Avenue Bridge – the concrete span that sweeps up from Manitoba Street and joins downtown Moose Jaw to South Hill. It’s far prettier than it needs to be and when you cross it on foot, though few do, you’ll find terracotta cameos, Egyptian references in the light standards and pastel-coloured stanchions framing the bridge deck.

Last week, as we watched CPR engineers building trains in the rail yard, an antlered buck watched us from the duff coloured prairie below. This is the busiest CPR hub in western Canada and deer families stroll about like family pets feeding on grain spilled along the tracks. They sometimes get in the way of an engine with unhappy results. But railworkers look out for them and will radio for assistance if, as happened last week, a deer is floundering through the ice on Thunder Creek.  The creek rolls in from the west, a slow, tannic-dark stream that merges with the Moose Jaw River at the turn in Wakamow Valley.

The concrete bridge was built in 1929 to replace a wooden trestle structure that carried traffic over rails and water. Before then, a natural crossing had long been used by the Assiniboine, Cree, Peigan, Saulteaux and Blackfoot people. So the medallions of two Indian Chiefs that stud the concrete supports – Bear Ghost and Mike Oka – may have been placed in recognition of the people who had earlier used the route.  Or C.A. Turner, the Minneapolis architect who designed the bridge, may have simply liked their profiles.

This photo of the Lakota Sioux Chief Bear Ghost was taken at the Last Great Indian Council in Montana in 1909 by J.K. Dixon. It’s not clear if Bear Ghost ever visited Moose Jaw, although a party of Lakota Sioux led by Chief Sitting Bull was known to have camped by Moose Jaw creek after escaping the US Cavalry following the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Chief Mike Oka does not turn up in any local historical records but his surname suggests an Algonquin connection. Maybe there was a compelling reason to honour these two men or maybe, back in 1929, the artist chose strong-featured models rather than historically accurate representatives.

And then there’s the moose. Local artist Rob Froese touched up the bridge art last spring, refreshing the colours and rebuilding the bas relief where needed.

As a whole, the 4^th Avenue Bridge is a beautiful, functional piece of the built environment that pays respect to the city’s earliest roots. By good fortune – some may not view this as good fortune – the real estate boom that has razed so much of our recent history has left Moose Jaw untouched.  The past 100 years overlay the post-glacier ancient land and the stories are hiding in plain sight.

Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the skies are not cloudy all day.