File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: Like a trip across the Red Bridge, the rebuild process has been slow and uneven

Sep 19, 2025 | 12:30 PM

IT WAS A YEAR AGO that Kamloops and Tk’emlúps awoke to find the Red Bridge that had connected our two communities for generations was gone.

Its smoking embers had splashed into the South Thompson River, destroyed by an arsonist’s spark.

Twelve months later, little has changed at the site.

The remnants of the bridge and its supports have been taken away and now you could scarcely tell anything ever stood in that spot.

Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 4, 2025

9h ago

SOUND OFF

SOUND OFF: 16 days of activism against gender-based violence

Dec 03, 2025

Question of the Week

Will the amount of money you spend on Christmas be more or less than last year?

Dec 01, 2025

The Red Bridge in its last form had long outlived its practicality.

Travelling across the bridge was an exercise for your vehicle’s shocks and the strength of its steering wheel as the driver squeezed it in terror.

This past year without this particular crossing over the river, commuters have made their adjustments and life has gone on — albeit with a little less convenience.

The true value of the long-standing wooden truss bridge, though, was not as a piece of infrastructure but as a symbol of the connection between the residents of the City of Kamloops and our Indigenous hosts on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc.

That’s why the foot-dragging by the province on getting a new connection built has been so frustrating.

Both Tk’emlúps and the City of Kamloops agreed immediately after the bridge burned that another bridge needed to be built in its place.

This city has too few river crossings as it is. Taking away this one, even with its flaws, hurt our communities both practically and symbolically.

We’ve heard a planning and design contractor has been picked and, this week, we learned preferred options will come forward next year.

Next year? There should be heavy equipment back on site already, let alone sometime next year — or more likely, 2027.

Why does replacing a bridge with another bridge need to take this long?

And now, Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth is refusing to meet with Kamloops councillors at next week’s UBCM Convention to answer questions like that one.

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is coming up in just a couple of weeks and, with its significance to both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, it’s hard to see this issue outside the context of reconciliation.

For a provincial government that has made a show of its commitment to Indigenous priorities, it’s another area where that government has failed to bridge the divide between words and actions.

——

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.