Stockton Bridge

Stockton Bridge awaited the 18^th at the Aishihik River about 80 miles north of Whitehorse. A conventional timber bridge, Stockton spanned a deep gorge and water fairly boiled through the deep channel between its solid rock walls.

The 18th Comes to Skagway

The surging water hadn’t bothered the original builders. Given solid rock walls they didn’t have to raise support columns out of the water to support horizontal timbers and decking. They had simply laid their horizontal timbers across from one rock wall to the other, installed their decking and the old Stockton bridge had done yeoman duty for years.

Unfortunately, timbers with no support columns wouldn’t come near supporting the weight of a D8 Caterpillar Bulldozer. And in the narrow rock gorge with its flood of water, the soldiers of the 18^th could not install support columns either.

The soldiers got creative.

First they carefully drove a small truck with a winch across to the far side then they demolished the old bridge.

If they couldn’t place support columns under their timbers, they would set two large timber A-frames and hang their spanning timbers from them with cable.  In effect they would build a suspension bridge over a little river in the wilds of Yukon Territory.

The bases of the A-frames had to sit in pockets in the rock right at the edge of the river. That meant somebody had to jack hammer the pockets out of the rock at the level of the surging water.

No problem. They ran temporary stringers across from wall to wall then lowered ropes with platforms to hold the jack hammerers.

With four pockets in place, they set the base of a large timber in each one then raised the timbers to join at the top of two A’s. Each top got a metal cap with an eye bolt. And from the eye bolts they hung the steel cables that would support the frame and decking that crossed the river.

Their design became famous in the Corps of Engineers for its ingenuity.

It was also called Canyon Creek