This view looking south is from the Heron Bridge, recently renamed the Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge. The bridge marks where Baseline Road becomes Heron Road, and spans both the Rideau River, which you can see below, and the Rideau Canal. Fifty years ago last month, the bridge was being constructed when it collapsed. Nine workers were killed, and many more were injured. You can read more here if you like. There was a re-dedication of the bridge and a nearby memorial plaque for the anniversary of the disaster.
These shots are from early August, and the river was quite low, as you can see. Many rocks you can see in the river should have been under water.
Coming back from my errands, I passed over the bridge again. Here we have the Rideau Canal and Carleton University in the background. The Rideau River is to the right in this shot, among the trees. You can get a sense of how close the two waterways are by comparing the second shot to the first. The river is also lower than the course of the canal here.
Heading towards the campus, one might find a fallen tree trunk leaning down towards the water, or look at the river itself, with islands that are showing more of themselves than when the water's at higher levels. We have had some more rain since I took these shots, which helped somewhat, but it has been a very dry summer.
Beautiful photos of the river, William !
ReplyDeleteVery good river scenes there
ReplyDeleteBelas fotografias deste magnifico rio.
ReplyDeleteUm abraço e boa semana.
Andarilhar
Love the photographs. Picturesque spot but what a sad story about he loss of life.
ReplyDeleteWonderful shots - though awful to hear about that disaster. When I was a student, I worked on a bridge where there had been a fatal accident and the memory has never left me. There's a dry spell in parts of the UK at the moment too - whoopieee!
ReplyDeleteNice shots.
ReplyDeleteTomás.
The water looks so clean in that river. Is it?
ReplyDeleteJanis
GDP
it is beautiful. 9 workers killed - terrible.
ReplyDelete@Karl: thanks!
ReplyDelete@Bill: thank you.
@Francisco: thanks!
@Lauren: quite a bad day. When you're over the river section you really feel the height.
@Mike: apparently there were survivors as part of this ceremony.
@Tomas: thanks!
@Janis: relatively, yes. There have been problems this summer with algae blooms in the Canal though.
@Tex: very terrible.
So serene!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteThese are really nice photos. Liked it :)
Beautiful, beautiful William. Sad about a life loss.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean by long hit summers and low water levels William! Beautiful autumn colours in you latest shots!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful river. So sad about the loss of lives. We are also going through hot days here.
ReplyDeleteIt must have been difficult for family who lost loved ones. Good news story. We can use one!
ReplyDeleteIt seems very odd when you see a river that is extremely low. You see things that are ordinarily under water. It's certainly another look at the river.
ReplyDeleteYou have narrated this post so well, William, and the photos are beautiful. Very sad about the lives lost.
ReplyDelete@Halcyon: it was on this day. I'll be finishing up this series tomorrow with more of the river.
ReplyDelete@Gazeteci: thank you.
@Carolann: it was a tragedy.
@Grace: this summer's been a bad one for water levels here.
@Nancy: we might well be done with it. We had a storm system blow through overnight on Saturday. Sunday was a lot cooler.
@Jennifer: there were children who grew up without fathers, and men who died in horrific ways among the wreckage. It's quite a story, that I was generally unaware of until the past year.
@Red: it's a very different look than when we've got higher water levels. It's possible to cross the river downstream from here at the Carleton rapids.
@Linda: thank you.
I would think of bridge building as dangerous work and the collapse just proves my point. So sad.
ReplyDeletenice whit waters, very cool! need 2 kayak there. ( ;
ReplyDeleteBeautiful views of the river. It's sad that people died due to the collapse of building a bridge. It's good to remember them.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a very strange hot dry summer. Hot again here today!
ReplyDeleteIs it just me, or are Canada's rivers cleaner than ours?
ReplyDeleteNice reflections in the water too.
ReplyDelete@Sharon: the scale of carnage in that was astonishing. Some people got away without a scratch simply because they were two minutes faster finishing up a task and walking off. Others died in the middle of a job.
ReplyDelete@Beth: this year it might be too shallow, but I've never seen any kind of boat on this stretch of the river. There are a number of rapids between the university and Hog's Back Falls.
@Bill: it is good.
@RedPat: it's mild here. Not like it was last week. We might be done with the real heat.
@Norma: they might be, at least in this case.
@Marleen: yes, indeed!
beautiful sites ~
ReplyDeleteMakes you think of how incredibly important (and costly) bridges can be.
ReplyDeleteVery nice shots of the river. Sad about the bridge collapse and the loss of life. We don't often realize how dangerous bridge building can be. Interesting you mentioning the low tide. When we were in Washington DC over the weekend, we noticed the water level on the Potomac was the lowest we had ever seen it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize the lowered water levels had hit your area too. I knew they had in Western Canada.
ReplyDeleteA natureza nos brinda com sua exuberância.
ReplyDeleteFotos lindas
Um abraço
You got some nice shots of the river. Ottawa is such a beautiful city.
ReplyDeleteBridge building is a dangerous business. It was somewhat a matter of pride that the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was built with a relatively small loss of life.
ReplyDelete@Tammie: thanks!
ReplyDelete@Revrunner: true!
@Denise: it's been low again this summer on the rivers.
@Mari: it depends on the year. 2016 was a bad one.
@Gracita: thank you!
@Wendy: it is.
@Kay: that was an accomplishment.