Swampspruce… are you sure you are not my in laws? (She’s a day care teacher, he teaches Core French in an Elementary school). They are complaining about going back to school more than their kids!
I like the new UP train from Union to Pearson. Very quick and comfortable!
Wonderful!
Canada is a divided nation.
Specifically, the new bridge that opened up last month that is the only Canadian road link between eastern and western Canada broke.
The first cold day we’ve had this winter (not even a very cold day), andthe bridge split in halfwhen an expansion joint failed.
That surprised me, for I was expecting ice falling from the suspension bridge’s cables to be crowning architectural achievement, but I was wrong, for I never predicted that the bridge would split in half a month after opening.
Now it just happens that tomorrow have to work at satellite office in a community on the other side of that bridge. So either I cancel half a dozen appointments, or I have to make a detour.
The detour is an additional 1200 kilometers, of which 900 is through the USA, and no one knows how long the only Canadian road link between east and west will be closed. My name isn’t Odysseus, so I’m rescheduling rather than circumnavigating Superior. It’s going to be an interesting day tomorrow.
I was lucky enough to have coffee with Northern Piper on Friday, and we were talking about the time you had to serve something to someone working on that bridge. Clearly, the very mention of your name, O Muffin, carries a power that mortals were not meant to mess with.
I’m looking forward to taking it the next time I have to fly into Toronto.
As for the Nipigon bridge, that’s some joint failure! I remember driving through the site last summer, and the new bridge looked impressive. Any idea how long it will take to fix?
Good time was had by all (two) of us.
How did the rehearsal go, Le Ministre?
When I saw the news about the bridge the first thing I thought about was that exact comment by Muffin.
Then I thought about how if we still living in Ontario we would have gone to Kapuskasing this weekend and been forced to reroute coming back. It would suck going from Kapuskasing to Thunder Bay via Michigan.
Also I am glad my father in Law’s specialists are in Sudbury, not TBay. Ornge Air is going to be busy doing hospital transfers from the district to Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
This is double plus ungood.
Wow. I haven’t seen the news today. I wonder if things will be backlogged to Chalk River tomorrow for my super commute.
Even if the bridge were open, you would have had a long delay or else have one extremely long detour via 17. When I called to cancel my reservation, the Long Lac receptionist said that they were cut off due to a major collision shutting down 11 between there and Kap.
If it takes a couple of minutes to tune a guitar, and a couple of hours to tune a piano, how long does it take to tune a suspension bridge? The suspense is killing me (or at least taking a bite out of my pocket book through lost work).
No word yet. My guess is that it was tuned too tight to begin with, so when the cables contracted in the cold snap . . .
I’ve had coffee with **Ministre. **Good times. 
As for the bridge - I wonder if the incredible traffic problems have been solved yet. It sounds very complicated.
If the only way around the busted Nipigon bridge is to go via the US, I wonder what poor souls that the US doesn’t like (e.g. with criminal records) are supposed to do? In some cases I guess they could just spend a bunch of bucks to fly from the nearest airport on one side to the nearest one on the other (then would presumably need to rent a car), but if you have a lot of stuff with you that wouldn’t work.
Ministry of Transport says it is closed. Local OPP says that one lane is open. (The MTO is notorious for posting closures and failing to clear the notices one roads are re-opened.) I’m waiting for the backlog to clear a bit and then trying to get across.
Many concrete weights were placed on it overnight to try to force the road back into place. (WHEEEE!!! A JEEP CATAPULTING ACROSS THE RIVER!).
The closest gas station on the eastern side is an hour’s drive, so folks needing to fill up in Nipigon on the Western side had to walk across last night and either hang out in gas stations or the community centre, or have folks from TBay drive out (1.5 hours each way) and fetch them. I’ll take one of them with me to get him back to his truck.
Hopefully the temporary fix will keep a lane open for a few days, otherwise I’ll have to circumnavigate Lake Superior to get home.
I’m also hoping that all is needed is a tuning of the cables, which while being quite a job, would be faster than having to rebuild parts of the structure itself. I guess the big question now is what damage was done to the giant springboard.
Wow. I hope it all works out for you,Muffin! Ever considered getting your pilot’s license? 
I"m also wondering about the people who were supposed to use the bridge, who didn’t bring any fancy ID with them, and then have to go into the US unexpectedly.
CBC says the bridge is open for one lane of traffic: Damaged Trans-Canada Highway bridge near Nipigon reopens to 1 lane | CBC News
I assume that will mean some long waits, but at least it’s open!
Is this the first winter for the bridge? It seems like a huge engineering fail if cold weather wasn’t accounted for.
And the bar in Longlac is closed for the staff Christmas party tonight. (There may be another bar, and I guess they serve beer at the Arena, but …yeah)
I have heard one lane is open, limited service? My brother-in-law type person is leaving this week from Edmonton to drive to Kapuskasing. My partner is flying to Timmins, so that isn’t a problem. Me, I am staying here to enjoy* my winter.
*for limited definitions of enjoy. Ill father in law far away is not fun.
Yay! I made it across the Nipigon bridge! One lane of the bridge was opened by stacking a couple of hundred large concrete highway dividers on the end of the westbound lane so as to push down the roadway enough to let vehicles use the eastbound lane (even then the westbound lane was still not down where it should be).
Boo! About a hundred yards later, a kind officer informed me that the highway was closed up ahead and would remain closed for several hours due to a burning transport. (This closure of 11 between Nipigon and Long Lac and should not be confused with the other closure of 11 between Long Lac and 11 today, or the closure of 11 on the other side of Long Lac yesterday.
Yay! A detour along the very beautiful North Shore of Superior for an hour to Terrace Bay, and then up the forest road to Long Lac for three hours, brought me to Long Lac for the night. A long drive through great scenery sure beats sitting in line watching some poor person’s semi burn. The clerk at the motel was still waiting for a person who was stopped by the fire, so I gather it took a long time for it to burn out.
Ike, it was the first cold day (though not an extreme cold by any means) that we have had this winter, so yes, at first blush, it looks to be either a very big engineering fail, or a flawed bolt. I’m going with it being an engineering fail. The fellow I drove back across the bridge spoke this morning with one of the people working on the bridge who said an engineer from Florida was on his way up. I have no idea if this was a joke or not.