Laurentian architecture students building bridge with Ontario Parks, Sagamok First Nation

Some students in Sudbury, Ont., are building a bridge to a challenging hiking trail in northern Ontario.

Graduate students from the McEwen School of Architecture at Laurentian University are working on the school's first large-scale project.

The bridge will be at Fort La Cloche, south of Massey, Ont., in La Cloche Provincial Park, where the lengthy and gruelling Heaven's Gate Trail begins. The bridge will be what trail users see first when they start the 40-kilometre hike through the wilderness.

The project is a partnership between the school, Ontario Parks and Sagamok First Nation.

Randall Kober, lead professor for the project, says it first began in 2019 and was meant for that graduate class to complete, however three different sets of graduate students have worked on the project.

Several issues caused the delay, including changes to the structure's length. The bridge went from eight metres to 12.5, and is now set at 16 metres in length.

"So the size is something that caught up with us and then COVID got in between," Kober said.

The first group of students started with the conceptualization before the project moved to schematic design, then to design development.

"Now we're going into construction," Kober said.

The students working on the project have already created the main arch at the bottom of the structure. It's made of cedar trees felled within the First Nation.

"So there's the interfacing with Sagamok First Nation — which is a learning experience in itself, and then they're working with wood which is another foundational desire of our institution is to be this wood-centred school," he said.

The students are also learning digital fabrication and hand-making techniques using standard power tools, what Kober called "good old-fashioned handcraft."

This summer, the McEwen School of Architecture will hold its first design build camp to work on further construction of the bridge. That event will be open to any student enrolled at the school, not just grads.

The bridge will be installed in August, replacing an aging one that is located downstream.

"Once it goes in — piece by piece — we can start fabricating other portions, because it has a roof and some of these things can't be done until the structure is in place," Kober said.

This is the first large scale-project for the architecture students, but the hope is to continue to go larger.

"We are approached by many different groups around northern Ontario that would have interest in working with us," Kober said.

Grad students from the 2021 cohort worked on the design of a 50-metre timber bridge in New Liskeard, but Kober was quick to point out the students did not work on the build. 

"That cohort worked with the engineers on the sizing of the spans and the members. The beginning of the detailing and then the second half of this semester, we concentrated on New Liskeard on a much larger bridge."

To get to Heaven's Gate Trail, users must travel through Sagamok First Nation and into La Cloche Provincial Park, which is operated by Ontario Parks.

"We think [the trail is] very unique and striking because of its place on the North Channel, and it'll attract a lot of use," said Will Kershaw, senior management planner with Ontario Parks Northeast.

"It's different from other trails in the area so it'll get its own following."

Kershaw said he believes the bridge will help attract more people to the area and the trail.

"It's an amazing design," he said of what the students came up with for the bridge.

 "When people look at it it will really be striking and they'll want to send photographs to their friends." 

Kober is hopeful that trail users at La Cloche will enjoy the design of the new bridge at the trail.

"We know people at Sagamok and at [Ontario] Parks are very excited, thinking of this as something that would bring visitors to the site," Kober said.

"It's a starting point for an extensive network, and we think that it really speaks to its site and is a truly unique structure that is designed specifically for that place in northern Ontario.

"This is the gate to Heaven's Gate Trail."