Beavers fleeing St. Catharines for Thorold will have new bridge
Posted By DOUG HEROD
   

A pall of gloom descended on my column-writing world last week. The City of St. Catharines finally held its ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Merritt Street bridge. With a snip of the scissors, the life of a dependable, go-to topic had ended.

What, the city couldn’t have waited another six months for the bridge’s one-year anniversary?

Anyway, I was feeling pretty blue until I saw an ad this week about a new bridge project in Thorold. The project has a potentially controversial Laura Secord/War of 1812 connection.

Heck, all I had with the Merritt Street bridge was a Ricci’s Tavern link. And I quickly ran out of disco jokes.

Goodbye Ricci, hello Laura.

Briefly, the bridge in question is on DeCew Road, near Merrittville Highway, and traverses a water channel off Lake Gibson.

It’s a narrow, sub-standard structure that is used by relatively few travellers -- a few area residents, hikers, visitors to Morningstar Mill and scared beavers fleeing St. Catharines.

The bridge had been the property of Ontario Power Generation, but ownership was recently transferred to the City of Thorold. As part of the transfer arrangement, OPG agreed to pay for a bridge replacement.

Sweet deal, eh? I mean, as long as it’s on OPG’s tab, Thorold might as well insist on titanium footings and solid gold railings.

The city will be unveiling the preferred design at a public information meeting Feb. 12. The plan calls for a 13-metre-wide bridge that would accommodate two lanes of traffic, two bike lanes and one sidewalk.

The new bridge will be on the same alignment as the old one, which means that section of road will be closed during construction. A significant detour will be in order for travellers, except, presumably, for the displaced beavers.

If all goes well, Thorold officials hope the bridge replacement can take place this year.

But enough technical stuff. What of the Secord controversy?

The bridge is just east of DeCew House, Secord’s destination in 1813 when she left her home in Queenston to tell British Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon of a pending American attack.

Presumably in honour of her trek, OPG dubbed the structure the Laura Secord bridge. It was the name used during the transfer negotiations between Thorold and OPG.

This upset Thorold resident, local historian and Brock geography professor Alun Hughes to no end.

In a letter to The Standard last month, Hughes suggested the bridge name was an affront to history.

That’s because it’s "99.99 per cent" certain Secord came to DeCew House from the west, said Hughes.

OK, granted, it’s highly unlikely Secord’s route took her past the site of to-day’s bridge. And the bridge name may serve to convince people otherwise.

Still, the bridge is near the house she ended up at. Naming it after her gives the area additional historical cachet, right?

I asked Hughes if, in light of this, he wasn’t being, well, a bit of a fusspot.

"Oh, sure I am," he happily responded. Accepted local history is rife with errors or misleading information, he said, "so every opportunity I get, I correct things."

So you’re a proud fusspot?

"Good god, yes. They can put it on my gravestone."

Hughes has a name-change supporter in Thorold Coun. Fred Neale.

Neale, who grew up in Thorold, claims the bridge name exists primarily, perhaps exclusively, in OPG documentation.

He knows of no locals who refer to it as the Laura Secord bridge. It’s simply the DeCew bridge.

Neale vows to end any confusion. Now that Thorold officially owns the bridge, it’s in a position to change the name to DeCew.

"I will make sure that happens sooner than later," Neale said.

Whoa, whoa, what’s the rush? If stretched out, this could be a new go-to topic.

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