Qualla: Selkirk Lift Bridge

Selkirk Lift Bridge: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SevenSixty2, CC0. On April 29, 1937, a local man named Ed Maloney decided he had waited long enough. The brand-new vertical-lift bridge spanning the Red River at Selkirk, Manitoba, had been finished for nearly a year, but no level of government would claim ownership -- and without an owner, the bridge sat with its deck raised, barricaded with timbers, useless to the people it was built to serve. So Maloney walked out to the mechanism, cranked the lift span down by hand, and opened the bridge to traffic himself. Federal officials arrived to close it. The community pushed back. Within days, engineers inspected the structure, and on May 3, 1937, the Selkirk Lift Bridge was officially opened at 12:45 p.m. A few excited locals celebrated by cutting a hole in the river ice and jumping in.

Read more: Selkirk Lift Bridge on Qualla

Image: SevenSixty2 | CC0

Selkirk Lift Bridge: Depression-Era Defiance

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit J Hazard, Public domain. Before 1934, residents of Selkirk and the neighboring Rural Municipality of St. Clements relied on a busy ferry to cross the Red River. When the Canadian government allocated $40 million to a national infrastructure program to combat Great Depression unemployment, Manitoba receiv...

Read more: Selkirk Lift Bridge on Qualla

Image: J Hazard | Public domain

Selkirk Lift Bridge: The Man Who Opened a Bridge

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. Ed Maloney's solution was beautifully direct. He placed wood planks against the bridge approaches and manually lowered the lift span so pedestrians and vehicles could cross. His unauthorized act of civic engineering forced the issue: Ottawa could no longer ignore a bridge that pe...

Read more: Selkirk Lift Bridge on Qualla

Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Selkirk Lift Bridge: Steel and Water

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. The Selkirk Lift Bridge is a vertical-lift design, meaning its central span rises straight up between two towers rather than swinging or drawing apart. This allows large vessels -- including the steamships and freight boats that once plied the Red River -- to pass through while t...

Read more: Selkirk Lift Bridge on Qualla

Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0

Selkirk Lift Bridge: Weathering the Decades

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada, CC BY 2.0. By the 1970s, decades of Manitoba winters, spring floods, and heavy use had taken their toll. Multiple repair campaigns addressed corrosion and structural wear. In 1990, a Provincial Highways Department official described the bridge's condition as 'disgraceful.' On January 6, 199...

Read more: Selkirk Lift Bridge on Qualla

Image: Robert Linsdell from St. Andrews, Canada | CC BY 2.0