12 PREVIEW Wednesday, November 4, 1992 Heather Hadley Classified Manager FREE EMPLOYMENT-WANTED CLASSIFIEDS. Today your main concern is taking care of your family. Feeding them. Clothing them. Putting a roof over their heads. To do that, you need a job. And these days jobs can be a little hard to come by. So your friends at the Castlegar News want to give you a little help. Now you can run your own ~employment-wanted' ads free. Because if we help you to get an even break, you'll do the rest. That's the job of any community newspaper. So that's our job here at your community newspaper, the Castlegar News ... 365-7266 V Mh WY; EASMEEGER i, ‘ @ Wednesday, November 4, 1992 AroundTOWN Our person for Our People Corinne Jackson 365-7266 PREPARING FOR WINTER: Winter is almost here and it’s time to think safety. Crescent Valley Centre is offering a three-hour winter driving course in the evening of Nov. 9. For more information call the centre at 359-7564. WORK IDEAS Are you having difficulties deciding what you want to be when you grow up? Selkirk College’s Castlegar campus is presenting a live satellite videoconference on “Careers in the Environment” on Nov. 10 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the staff lounge. Participants will have the chance to meet and talk with professionals in the field of environmental management via satellite. Admission is free and all are invited. YOU COULD BE LUCKY — A telephone trivia game called Canada 125 Challenge with prizes ranging from long- distance gift certificates to a 1993 Chevy Lumina Sedan, is now available to you too. Each call takes around two minutes and costs about 85 cents. Call 1- 900-561-5555. Good luck. OurPEOPLE Bridge over troubled water Corinne Jackson NEWS REPORTER There is more to the Brilliant Bridge than meets the eye. This is more than a story about a bridge. It’s the story of a people and their_way of life. The bridge was built from 1911 to 1913 by an illiterate community who worked from an architects’ blueprints. Unused, it still stands today, spanning the Columbia River and _ linking Ootischenia and Brilliant. As a monument, it is a reminder of the three people who died working on the project, and at least seven others who were badly injured. The plan for a bridge all began with the purchase of a jam factory. The Doukhobor’s Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood bought up a Nelson jam factory and wanted to move it closer to Ootischenia’s orchards. Foreseeing traffic problems they set out to create a solution. After the bridge was built, the factory’s headquarters were moved to Brilliant. Getting a bridge in Castlegar from the province was as difficult then as it is now. “We had a demand for a bridge so we asked the government to build one there. The government refused to do it so we found some architects and started building explains. Work on the bridge was already under way when the government put in $20,000 to match the $50, 000 paid in donations to the Christian Community of . Universal Brotherhood for the. project. The workers — who were functionally illiterate and who’s language was Russian — were faced with blueprints drawn up in English. An impossible task? Apparently not. According to Voykin, “they saw it and built from it. “Anything the community started to build they finished.” Indeed this wasn’t the first project the community had set out Some 100 people used their hands to create the structure. No heavy machinery, or electricity was used. “This is still a puzzle to today’s engineers,” Harry Voykin says with pride. Voykin’s father helped build the “It’s important for the younger Doukhobor population to see if something is needed, that this wasn’t built for business — for the short-term. If the people built something it was to last a lifetime.” to complete. Before the the bridge was ever built, the Doukhobors had “built jam factories, the flour mills, the oil presses, -, brick factories and Hay kaye sawmills without bridge and he, along with others in the Doukhobor community, are looking to restore the bridge as a historical site. “Those people made their own hammers and axes, even the level (used to make sure the structure was level) was homemade. “Everything was done with their hands and wheelbarrows. The cement was brought from Spokane and hand-mixed,” he marvels, According to Voykin, there was a “cable- run ferry with horses,” before there was ever a bridge. the bridge.” Well, it wasn’t all that simple, really. The architects submitted plans for a wooden bridge and a steel one. “They went for the steel structure,” Voykin says, explaining that they wanted something that was going to last. The choice was a philosophical one. “It’s important for the younger Doukhobor population t6 see if something is needed, that this wasn’t built for business — for the short-term. If the people built something it was to last a lifetime,” Voykin blueprints, or engineers,” Voykin says. Although the bridge was built without outside help, it wasn’t without it’s costs. There was at least one week when it rained. Gun powder and blasting caps to be used for blasting a path for the bridge got wet. According to Voykin, the caps were lying on a stove drying in the same building where the men were eating their lunch. “Without the knowledge of what can happen,” he says an explosion occurred, killing three people and injuring several others. Although it was initially a bridge for horse-drawn carriages, in later years it carried heavier traffic. “It was built strong enough for logging trucks and Greyhound buses.” A smiling Voykin says, “the bridge was used more in the last three years of it’s existence” until the current bridge was created in 1968. According to Voykin, the Brilliant Bridge — the second oldest in B.C. — is being studied by Cominco engineers to see if it can be restored. “They'll be making their final analysis soon, but they’ve said the structure is still in good shape. “If restored it would be used as a foot bridge and for bicycles,” Voykin says, adding that it would be open to the public. “It would be Harry Voykin, stands proudly at the Brilliant Bridge that served the area's citizens for more than 55 years. The bridge preserving one of B.C.’s is more than a connector, it is an historical accomplishment built by the Doukhobor community. oldest engineering projects.”