You can't cross this bridge when you come to it
As covered bridge in Riverview threatens to collapse, local families want it saved
Not everyone has a covered bridge in front of their house, but William Mitton does.
It even shares his name.
"I guess it was named after my grandfather," Mitton said, standing in front of the William Mitton Covered Bridge in Riverview. "He owned the farm when they put it in here."
Despite a strong family history with the bridge, time is running out for it.
It's falling apart.
It's closed to vehicles, and you wouldn't dare walk across it, nor could you. Barricades with bright orange signs keep pedestrians out at both ends.
"It's bad. It was part of the history here, I guess, been there that long," Mitton said. "I'd hate to see it go."
One side of the bridge sags dramatically toward the creek bed below, and several roof beams lean down on the floorboards. Sunlight pokes through a minefield of holes in the roof, with spots of moss and mildew creeping across key support beams.
Following several bad spring floods, the abutments on either side of the bridge are caving in, and with erosion the wooden beams look as if they could pop out any minute.
For Ray Boucher, president of the Covered Bridges Conservation Association of New Brunswick, it represents just another of the province's unique historic sites that have been neglected.
"It's an orphan," Boucher said. "It won't survive another winter. We're going to find it floating down the Petitcodiac River one of these days down to Hillsborough someplace."
Without hesitation, he said the William Mitton is in the worst shape of any of New Brunswick's surviving 59 covered bridges.
"It makes me cry."
A farm bridge
Despite its rough condition today, the bridge was once the main connection to the Mitton farm.
The bridge started out in nearby Kent County. Local lore used to refer to it as the "traveling bridge," and many claimed it floated down the river.
The real story is less exciting.
Farmer William Mitton purchased the bridge and had it dismantled and moved in 1942 to its present site in the rural outskirts of Riverview.
Crossing an offshoot brook from Turtle Creek, which leads into the Petitcodiac, the bridge served as the farm's main connection to the Coverdale Road.
Mitton runs the family's dairy farm today, but takes a different route to town than his grandfather did.
Deemed unsafe for farm truck traffic in 1981, a culvert was built upstream to bypass the covered bridge, rerouting the road.
The bridge soon found more use as a tourist attraction than a farm bridge. Visible from the Coverdale Road, it's on a major route between Salisbury and Moncton — what would eventually become Route 112 — which made the bridge well-known locally.
The fight to save the bridge
Boucher and his organization began fighting for the bridge six years ago when its condition started to decline.
Two years ago, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, which owns the bridge, estimated it would cost $350,000 to fix it. The bridge has since gotten worse, and Boucher estimates the cost would be much higher that that estimate because a crane would be needed.
After learning the high cost repair, Boucher turned his attention to the bridge's ownership: if the province didn't take an interest, would the town of Riverview?
It had been done before. Of the 59 covered bridges in the province, DTI owns 54. Two of the other bridges are within Fundy National Park and maintained by the federal government, one is in the Acadian Village museum near Caraquet, but two covered bridges in Moncton, at Magnetic Hill and Turtle Creek, have been taken over by the city.
In a September 2021 letter to the mayor and council, Boucher proposed that Riverview take ownership of the bridge, arguing that the William Mitton has "considerable heritage and tourism value" to the town.
He wanted the bridge to be repaired, with a park built to welcome travellers coming into town.
The province was willing to hear out the idea.
Serge Gagnon, the chief engineer with DTI, said in a July 2022 letter to Boucher the province "would be interested in pursuing this initiative."
The motion was discussed at Riverview town council that summer, but hopes were short-lived. In an August letter, Mayor Andrew LeBlanc told Boucher the town was not interested.
With this defeat to Boucher's proposal, the bridge would remain in provincial hands.
CBC News requested an interview with a department official but was only given an emailed statement.
It said the future of the bridge is "yet to be determined, but addressing aging infrastructure in a responsible and sustainable fashion is a top priority" for the department.
Bridging generations
Aside from the Mitton family, Nina and Raymond Jones are the only other family on the Mitton Road. They live right in front of the bridge on the corner of Route 112.
Raymond still tries to do his part to keep the bridge presentable, mowing the grass so it's approachable for people who stop to look.
In years past, he said, four or five cars an hour would stop to see the bridge.
"Nowadays, they don't even get out of the cars," Raymond said. "They just turn around and go back out. It's in such poor disrepair that a picture wouldn't do it justice so they just leave."
The Jones family's connection to the bridge spans three generations.
"This bridge means a lot to us," Nina said, "because all our kids grew up here, played here … There's weddings here, we've had anniversary parties out there, we've had all kinds of graduation parties."
Her son, George Jones, said he spent most of his childhood playing around the bridge.
"It was really neat growing up near this place, it gave you a pretty neat place to be that not everybody else had," he said.
George's grandchildren, Mary and Ruth Jones, are no longer able to play on the disintegrating bridge, but recall long summer days spent there in years past.
"It's a good bridge, somebody should try to do something with it. Right now they're just going to let it fall into the river," Mary said.
"Now it's sad," Ruth said, pointing to the bridge. "I wouldn't run across that if I were you."
A unique history
Covered bridges are a vanishing part of history in New Brunswick. Boucher said in 1953 there were 340 of them. He believes their tourism value makes them worth saving.
"We have the Reversing Falls, we have the Tidal Bore, we have Magnetic Hill, we have a lot of tourist attractions in New Brunswick," Boucher said. "But the one thing that's unique to our province here in Atlantic Canada is the covered bridges."
Raymond Jones echoes that sentiment.
"How many are left in the province, this is number 59? If they take this out, it only leaves 58. The numbers are going down," he said.
"I'd like to see it put back up. Either tear it down or fix it up, one or the other."
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