The Capilano suspension bridge

The Capilano suspension bridge

Abstract

The Capilano suspension bridge is a suspension bridge which is located in British Columbia, Canada in the district of North Vancouver that crosses the Capilano River built by a Scottish civil engineer by the name George Grant Mackay in 1889. Since then, the bridge has undergone various structural renovations discussed throughout this paper that have seen it be what it is today. The suspension bridge has become a wondrous sight that attracts millions of tourists to Vancouver today.

Appendix 1

Capilano Suspension Bridge (Vancouver, BC)

A suspension bridge is basically a type of bridge which has its ‘load baring section’ commonly known as its deck hanging below some suspension cables that are suspended between towers. These suspension cables have to be anchored at both ends of the bridge because any load that is applied on the bridge is tension that is transferred into these cables. The cables also go on beyond the anchorage at the ends of the bridge to the ground anchor supports. Suspension bridges can be traced as far back as the tail end of the 16th century to Fausto Veranzio, a Venetian who wrote a book called Machine Novae that included sketches of both rope and timber suspension bridges, hybrid suspension bridges and cable stayed bridges built with the use of iron chains. Throughout this research I shall focus mainly on the Capilano suspension bridge and discuss it in detail.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge which is located in British Columbia, Canada in the district of North Vancouver that crosses the Capilano River. A Scottish civil engineer by the name George Grant Mackay, who also doubled up as Vancouver’s park commissioner and owner at the time, originally built the bridge using hemp ropes and cedar planks as deck in 1889. This, however, was replaced, in 1903, with a strong wire cable bridge. In 1956, the bridge saw a complete structural rebuild to the use of steel and cable net, what it is today. Currently, the bridge stands at 140 metres, which translates to 450 ft long, and stands at 70 metres, translating to 230 ft above the Capilano River. To this day, this suspension bridge remains the longest suspension footbridge in the world. The name Capilano comes from an aboriginal name that belonged to the Squamish nation being originally spelled as Kia’palano, with the meaning “beautiful river”. The name Kia’palano was of a great Squamish chief that lived in this particular area in the early end of the 19th century. Over time the name “Kia’palano” was then anglicized into “Capilano” a word that turned to the namesake of the bridge, park and the river that surrounds the area (Jepson 39).

The park housing the bridge changed hands severally in throughout the course of its history. George Grant Mackay as mentioned earlier was a civil engineer by profession, had arrived from his homeland, Scotland the previous year. By this time, a local neighbourhood by the name “Moodyville” was by this time already thriving. The place where George bought the bridge, the Capilano area, which at this time was part of the North Vancouver District, was not behind, but nevertheless quite challenging to get to. Mackay purchased 6000 acres deep forest parcel of land in this particular area. Not quite having an idea of what he would to use the land for at the time, George bought it intending mining, tourism and logging purposes. His land thus spanned both of the Capilano River’s sides. It is alleged that Mackay purchased all of this land at about $1.00 per acre. In order to go across the 70-metre deep Capilano Canyon plus get access to the other side of his land, Mackay took the decision to construct a suspension bridge. With the assistance of two aboriginal persons, Mackay constructed the initial Capilano Suspension Bridge using hemp ropes and cedar planks. The bridge was secured at both of its ends to two big cedar stumps deeply buried underground. The bridge stood at 137 meters long and70 meters high, making it, to this very day, the longest suspension footbridge in the world. It was given the name ‘the laughing bridge’, due to the funny sounds that it made when wind blew through the canyon’s ridge. One year before his death in 1892, Mackay subdivided his land and sold the parcel that contained the Capilano Bridge to Bruno Steltzer, a wealthy speculator who envisioned the economic potential of Capilano Suspension Bridge. North Vancouver was full of wilderness around the Capilano area with the bridge attracting curious folk from all over Vancouver, who did not mind the long adventurous hike to the bridge (Lee 195).

Appendix 2

For one to get to the Capilano Suspension Bridge during the early 20th Century, one had to first of all take the trolley to the famous Vancouver ferry dock. From there, one had to take the ferry and make their way to North Vancouver. From there, one had to take another trolley and make their way to the last stop which was on Capilano Road and then walk about 1 mile where they would find bridge. This is the reason why the daring souls who were brave enough for the expedition to visit the Capilano suspension bridge were given the title “Tramps” since they had had to they had to tramp through thick bushes to make their way up the steep mountainside so as to make it to the bridge. In the rear 1903 Bruno decided to reconstruct the suspension bridge by replacing the hemp rope that was used with sturdier steel cables. Bruno then decided that he would give a charge of $10 cents per head to go across the bridge, making the Capilano Suspension Bridge one of Vancouver’s oldest, and since then one of its most famous tourist attractions to date. The suspension bridge and subsequent property were then purchased by an English businessman by the name Edward Mahon, in 1910. Edward then embarked on a quest of seeking marriage to a young lady, Lilette, a fete accomplished by offering Elizabeth, her mother a position of manager at the Capilano Suspension Bridge who found it hard to turn down such a big opportunity and hurriedly moved to Capilano, with her daughter Lilette by her side. Lilette and Edward were married a year later and were blessed with a little boy who they named Bryan. In 1911, Edward built a Teahouse in the park and had very beautiful flower bushes brought to the park all the way from the Orient and as far as Europe. Uncertain of the bridge’s structural strength, Edward proceeded to reinforce it with extra steel cables in the year 1914. He sold the Suspension Bridge to one Mac MacEachran in the year 1935 After Elizabeth’s death in 1934. Mac purchased the bridge from Edward and invited local aboriginal artisans, of who included a Kia’palano descendant by the name Mathias Joe Capilano, to come and do carving at the park. This thus began the tradition of raising Story Poles and displaying aboriginal artwork at the Capilano Suspension Bridge which has made it to this day the single largest private Story Poles collection in the world which feature both the southern and northern styles of story pole carving.

In the year 1945, Mac sold the Capilano Suspension Bridge to Henri Aubeneau and shifted to California. Aubeneau was a well established land developer. In his time at the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Henri kept things running just as they had been and didn’t make any major changes to neither the suspension bridge nor the park. He later on sold the suspension bridge to one Douglas McRae Mitchell in the year 1953. Being a dynamic businessman, Douglas aggressively advertised the Capilano Suspension Bridge worldwide. Not sure of the bridge’s 1914 cable strength, he proceeded to completely rebuild the bridge in a period of 5 days in the year 1956, encasing the new multi-stranded, steel cables in 13 tons of concrete both either ends. This is the same weight as 4 elephants on both sides. So as to tie the new suspension bridge to the previous one, McRae and his team made use of a pulley system so as to pull McRae’s new suspension bridge across the Capilano canyon. The fourth Capilano Suspension Bridge was designed to support over 1333 persons at a time. This meant that the suspension bridge would have to be filled with as many people standing together shoulder-to-shoulder, as to fill the bridge, each person carrying 4 extra persons on their shoulders so as to reach the maximum capacity. The bridge is as long as two ice hockey rinks and also as high as the Statue of Liberty’s collarbone, or a twenty five -storey building. The bridge’ length is approximately as wide as 2 Boeing 747s wingspans. This is the actual bridge that is still standing to this day, the bridge that visitors cross. McRae also went ahead and developed the trails situated on the western side of the suspension bridge and also converted the constructed Teahouse into a souvenir gift store. When Mitchell retired however, business declined on the bridge and the Suspension Bridge was faced with an uncertain future.

McRae’s daughter Nancy Mitchell believed that she could turn the Suspension Bridge around. In 1983, after working in the park for her father as a young girl, she purchased park and the bridge from him. She is the 7th and current owner. Since taking the important lead role at the Capilano Suspension Bridge, Mitchell has brought big transformations to the park. Today’s Capilano Suspension Bridge is quite a destination. The Story Centre is a display filled with actual life-sized artifacts, photo-murals and antiques as well as “voices from the past” and informative flipbooks which chronicle early history of the bridge. Treetops Adventure offers guests an amazing squirrel’s eye view on the bridge of the temperate West Coast rainforest and comprises of 7 suspension bridges suspended between the Douglas-fir trees. Treetop Adventures was the pioneer venue of its kind in the continental North America which is characterized by no damage of the trees in any way whatsoever. In the year 2011, Cliffwalk was introduced. It has been the newest, scariest and fun filled adventure at the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. The Capilano Bridge has endured several natural catastrophes in its lifetime, including the destructive Hurricane Frieda in the year 1962 with a more recent one being the windstorms in the year 2006. In winter of 2006 after experiencing the windstorms, a 300 year old Douglas-fir tree that was 91.4 metres high fell on the bridge. Its cables held very strong under the huge weight of the 93,000 pound fir-tree, and for the first time in its entire history, The Capilano Suspension Bridge Park had to be closed down for three months. Throughout this time, various crews removed the fallen tree and repaired, upgraded and tested the bridge’s complex anchoring system and affixing its cables into some 114 tons of solid concrete.

The bridge was built at an era when Canada was going through a post confederation period where the country had just come from a conference that had seen it merged into a federation. Canada had been under British colonial rule from periods dating back to the 16th century, a fact that had seen many of its inhabitants emigrate from their native European homelands and settle in North America. The country had previously seen an influx of French immigrants prior to the early part of the 19th century before thousands of British immigrants came into the country outnumbering the French by far. This had the effect of having French as a common language in some parts of the country as well as having it as a second language to most of its citizens even until this day. This was a period in time where the original Aboriginal inhabitants on North America, the Algonqia and the Na-Dene had been driven out of most of their lands in the continent and the Europeans had taken over them. The country was going through a period in history where the effects of the industrial revolution in Europe were spilling over to the Continental North America which saw an increase in the industrialization in the country and an increase of native European populations migrating into the country to work and live. At the time that Canada went through Confederation and the time immediately superseding it, the majority of the Canadian population lived in rural environments. They made their living through either farming or the exploitation of natural resources with the family being the basic working unit. However, by the early 1880s, the sought of wage labour outside home especially in an urban environment was increasingly becoming common. Easy to find Industrial work would be dangerous, demeaning, and underpaid with women and children employed in the industrial sector economy being typically paid half of the wages that men were paid. For the unemployed and seasonal workers, the extremely cold Canadian winters gave a punishing effect.

The influx of the European immigrants into North America changed a lot of the socio cultural, political and economic outlook of the land in such a way that Canada assimilated a European outlook and most of its cultural attributes. Towns came up and boomed fueled by the new immigrants and the financial and technological advantages that they brought with them. The aboriginal population were seen as outcasts and of an inferior race as in most of Great Britain’s colonies at the time. The aboriginal communities were also few in numbers considering the vast lands that they inhabited, making it easier for the Europeans to settle in and make the land their own. Superior technological weaponry also played to the European advantage in conquering the land. However, there were also some Asian immigrants, namely the Indians and the Chinese who came to mostly provide labour in the railway construction. However, these populations were not big enough to provide a cultural influence on the land as much as the Europeans did. The descendants of all these populations comprise the population of Canada today with the majority being of European descent. Very few African Americans were present at the time since very minimal amounts of slave trade found its way into the country. As a result of the few thousand African slaves that were brought into Canada, their social and cultural input was minimal. Their cultures were washed away as they were assimilated into the prevalent European cultures. To the present day, the population of African Canadians as compared to most North American countries is minimal since the slave trade never really made its way northwards to Canada and the absence of plantation fields (Brown 57).

Culturally, this is a period of time when the great migration of Canada was underway, greatly influencing the prevalent culture in Canada at the time. The industrial revolution in Great Britain that saw the increase in wealth among the British population and a reduction in the number of jobs due to mechanization of the manual jobs that led to the increase in migration and an influx of British migrants in Canada. It is estimated that during this period, 60% of all migrants were from Britain with the great potato famine if Ireland also driving many Irish migrants into Canada. Large French populous also migrated into the country at the time. Some asian migrants, mainly from china, who were escaping the wars and famine in their homeland to come work as railway construction workers. Indian migrants also found their way into Canada as migrant workers as a labour force for the railway. However, the asian population consisted of less than 8% of all the migrants meaning their socio cultural impact on the society was quite minimal at the time. All the European migrations into the Canadian country saw a complete revamp of the cultural landscape with the new population bringing the European culture to the country. The original inhabitants of the land, the Aboriginals’ culture took a back seat in the cultural landscape of the region due to the dominance that the Europeans imposed on them. The superior firepower and technological prowess of the European migrants meant that the Aboriginals were colonized and had a different culture and way of life imposed upon them. The main language that was prevalent in the country was English, which was naturally to be expected since most of the population was from English speaking countries such as Great Britain and Ireland. The French migrants also influenced the adoption of the French language as a second language to most Canadians even though the country had been a colony of the British Empire. This is one of the reasons why most of the country’s citizens have adopted the French language as a second language. The industrial revolution and the great technological innovations coupled with the urbanization of the Canadian country completely changed the landscape that was all country. The Europeans also brought with them a new religious outfit that was Christianity. The aboriginal society in North America used to worship spirits and their religious way of life was considered ‘backward’ by the new European society that imposed Christianity upon them. Christianity was therefore the main religion that was prevalent at the time (Jepson 65).

The construction of the bridge, as mentioned earlier, was by George Grant Mackay, a civil engineer who used two local natives for the labour force he needed. Grant, as an engineer, designed and oversaw the building of the bridge with his expertise coming handy throughout the project with no reports of casualties or fatalities being recorded in the history books. The European civilization brought about by the recent mass migration into North America was astonished by the construction of the bridge from the design to the construction of the bridge. Although they used locally assembled materials and natural materials, the bridge which hangs quite high was the brainchild of a European civil engineer who used a labour force that he was comfortable with to yield quite an amazing result to say the least. The small labour force of two local natives meant that the project took quite a while to complete but was nevertheless a successful construction and quite good for its time. The bridge never brought about any sort of major incidences structurally through its lifetime until it was constructed using different materials. George was uncomfortable with the long distance that one had to travel around the Capilano ridge and wanted to shorten the distance across it (Koglin 114).

In constructing the bridge, George wove the ropes together in an intricate web of weaves that could hold the weights of over thirty people at the same time and attached the cedar planks as the stepping platforms on which the parks visitors would use as footholds and support. The way he achieved this was by constructing the bridge on site and basically using a team of horses for the transportation of the materials up and down the ridges. He used cedar stamps of which he buried underground to secure the both ends of the bridge for support. This weaving technique was a simple and cheap type of building the bridge especially since George used cheap local labour that was readily available. The bridge was therefore characterized by a slight arch downwards from one end to the other which is synonymous with this type of suspension bridges. Considering the fact that it was the period superseding the industrial revolution, one would expect the bridge to be constructed using steel, iron and concrete but it’s probable that George wanted to maintain a natural ambience in the park so as to give the parks visitors a natural feel of the wilderness and a memorable trip to the park. In my view, George also wanted to give his visitors an adrenaline rush that would see them recommend the same to other people and through this raise the park’s fame.

If the bridge was to be built today, there would be a great technological input through a myriad of experience all over the world. Assuming it was to be built it today, the engineers would use pilings or some deep foundation excavations on both sides of the cliffs where multiple columns would be erected using reinforced concrete steel or stonework. For the fact that steel is quite expensive, the engineers would most probably use concrete. In line with the towers, anchorages would be constructed so as to resist the massive tensions that are as a result of the weight subjected to it. High strength cables which are usually made up of 4 gauge galvanized wire made of steel will be pulled by pulleys such that each end is tightly affixed on both ends of the columns (Dayaratnam 81).

Appendix 3

Safety of the users will be of utmost importance so safety measures have to be adhered to so as to protect their lives. Structural integrity of the bridge would therefore have to go through vigorous tests and checks with a myriad of tests subjected to it. The tests would range from the structural integrity of the materials used to build the bridge to the ground on which the bridge has been laid upon. In addition to this, heavy equipment for example cranes and mechanical pulley systems will have to be used on site to secure the various cables that would hold the bridge in place. Unlike when George first built the bridge, a much larger force of work crews would have to work on the bridge. Big trucks and cranes would be used to transport the heavy equipment to the suspension bridge’s site. Needless to say, the forest would experience an extensive damage due to the number of heavy machinery that would be making their way to the site of the project and during the construction of the bridge.

Instead of a suspension bridge, a stressed ribbon bridge which is also known as a Catenary bridge could be built. It is a complex tension structure that is similar in a lot of ways to a suspension bridge. Basically, the suspension cables holding the bridge are embedded in its HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck_%28bridge%29” o “Deck (bridge)”deck which then follows a big catenary arc between the supports. Unlike the conventional simple span, the bridge’s ribbon is stressed when subjected to traction, which in turn contributes to the stiffness and stability of the structure unlike simple suspension spans that tend to bounce and sway. The bridge’s supports in turn then support the upward thrusting arcs which allow the change of grade between spans in cases where there are multiple spans used. These bridges are characteristically made from concrete and reinforced by heavy steel tensioning cables. This type of bridge would be structurally more difficult to construct considering the distances that are involved in the Capilano case but nevertheless, in my opinion would be the best. This is because, since all the bridge’s support systems are below the bridge’s deck, the park’s visitors would have a good experience with the feeling that nothing is holding up the bridge and that they could fall. This would have a more adrenaline filled experience, one that may not easily be forgotten.

Some factors to be looked at also include weather patterns and the climate of the region and how they will affect the bridge. The bridge’s structure would have to undergo constant structural maintenance to prevent it from factors like corrosions and damage. Strong winds have been known to collapse bridges as in the 1940 case of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the United States. This particular bridge’s collapse was attributed to structural vibrations when subjected to strong winds since it had a structure made of plate girder deck, a phenomenon termed as ‘aero elastic fluttering’. This kind of structural failure should have been avoided by the civil engineers. The materials used in the construction of the bridge have to be carefully considered in any bridge construction. Another crucial element in the overall safety of the suspension bridge would fall on its main cable. With time in service, with close inspections, there are found to be many broken wires on the inside parts of the steel cables as well as at the various anchorages due to corrosion and intricate fractures (Delatte 69).

The Capilano Suspension Bridge was a great engineering achievement for its time. For a bridge constructed in the late 19th century to exist for such a long time and still pull crowds in an impressive fete of amazement, despite the fact that it has gone through several refurbishments and cannot be considered to be the same bridge that George Grant Mackay built, it is an impressive engineering structure. The Capilano Park receives in excess of 750,000 visitors each year with the future projections of the park over the next five years projected to exceed 900,000 annually. With the passage of time and the ‘evolution’ of the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the structural integrity of the bridge has been improving with no fatal accidents as a result of the bridge ever being reported. George Mackay built the bridge to connect two points in his property and reduce the distance covered by going round the canyon and ended up creating a marvel in the countryside. The current suspension bridge has been termed as an adrenaline junkies heaven with the visitors lamenting its high distance from the ground. Being the longest bridge of its kind, the Capilano suspension bridge is an engineering masterpiece.

Appendix 1

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Appendix 2

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Appendix 3

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Works Cited

Top of Form

Brown, Robert C. The Illustrated History of Canada. , 2012. Print.

Bottom of Form

Dayaratnam, P. International Conference on Suspension, Cable Supported, and Cable Stayed

Bridges: November 19-21, 1999, Hyderabad. Hyderabad: Universities Press (India) Ltd,

2000. Print.

Delatte, Norbert J. Beyond Failure: Forensic Case Studies for Civil Engineers. Reston, Va:

ASCE Press, 2009. Print

Jepson, Tim. The Rough Guide to Canada. London: Rough Guides, 2004. Print.

Koglin, Terry L. Movable Bridge Engineering. Hoboken, N.J: J. Wiley & Sons, 2003. Print.

Lee, John A. British Columbia. Footscray, Vic: Lonely Planet Publications, 2007. Print.

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