The Lasalle Causeway

Although not on the grounds of RMC proper, the Lasalle Causeway played a significant role in the lives of cadets attending RMC. In our day, since we were not supposed to own cars and certainly were not allowed to have vehicles on the premises, the only means of transportation was either by taxi or by foot. The Causeway served both purposes well since it was just a short distance in to the downtown, even more so because back then the only road in to and out of RMC was through the Memorial Arch. However, the iconic part of the Causeway was the lift or bascule bridge, designed so that larger vessels could come in or out of the inner harbour and also gain access to the Rideau Canal via the Cataraqui River. There was a second bridge closer to RMC that was fixed, and which allowed smaller vessels that same access.

For most cadets, however, the thing they remember is the distinct sound that car tires made when crossing the lift bridge, because to make the bridge lighter to lift, the base of road section was made of metal, spaced in such a way that you could actually see through to the water below. It was such a unique noise that everyone still vividly remembers years later - some as a a hum and some as though the bridge was singing. To others, the sound, as one person put it, was “strangely comforting” but many also found it very haunting, especially for the young recruits, some thousands of miles from home laying exhausted but awake at night in their bunk beds and wondering what the heck they had gotten themselves in to!

The memories did not just stop with those sounds. They also included fond memories of scarlet-clad cadets marching in to town across the lift bridge on Copper Sundays to attend churches of their denomination, so they could add pennies they had saved for months to the offering plates. Or, for our Class, marching with the entire Wing across the bridge to City Hall to be granted the Freedom of the City of Kingston during the centennial celebrations of RMC in 1976, and remembering fondly smiling at the clicking sounds our boots made on the “metal treads” of the bridge.

Unfortunately, in 2024, some 107 years after the lift bridge was first open in 1917, the counterweight for the bridge was inadvertently damaged during some repairs. Subsequent structural analysis determined there were significant enough issues that the bridge could not be safely repaired and would have to be demolished and replaced.

You can see in the first four photos below first workers using acetylene torches to cut that last piece of counterweight section from the remainder of the lift bridge; a longer shot of a worker cutting the last metal connecting that section; that section releasing and then part of the bridge collapsing as “planned”. “Planned” in the sense of being hopeful, because to anybody watching the workers and the piece of equipment sitting there on the road on other end, there were just so many things that could have gone wrong - even the surprised expression on the second worker on the left kind reinforces the idea that there was some trepidation! But, they were successful and as you can see in the next photo take by Pete Avis when he was out in his boat, the bridge was no more.