One more late fall adventure with Carolyn Williams. Today we make a stop at Big Erick's Bridge over near Skanee and L'Anse. It's an interesting design by Northwest Design Group, according to the sign in the bottom photo. It also says that it is built with a combination of hemlock boards, glue laminated beams and steel rods under high tension to provide a deck which will perform at highway loads.

That's the Huron River that it spans and looks to be quite a rocky riverbed in this location at least. I wasn't able to find anything about the name of the bridge, other than it's located on a road also named Erick road, so if you know where the name of the road and the bridge stem from, feel free to let us know here below. I found it quite interesting that when I did a Google search, many of the links came up with the spelling as "Eric's", not "Erick's" as the sign pictured here states. So that has me wondering now, too!

I love this bridge! Wonderful pictures! Received
an early Christmas present, our daughter and
grandson told us our 2nd grand baby due in
February will be a grand daughter making them a
family of 4.

This is at Big Erick's Falls, Eric's Falls is down the road.

Just checked my pics from August, and they are both spelled with a "k", as noted at the falls sites. Water must not have been running strong in these pictures, since there isn't one of the actual falls. This is Erick's Falls: Big Erick's Falls

Nice bright pix...love the blue UP sky.
Congrats JT.

I found this about Big Eric on an Arvon Township archive website. You can read the whole history of the township here: Arvon Township

Eric Erickson (Big Eric) was the most colorful of the lumber jacks. Eric emigrated to Michigan in the year 1900 at seventeen years of age. He left to work in the Dakota Harvest Fields. Then he traveled west to file for a homestead in Oregon. On his return to Skanee he progressed from farm worker at the Been farm, next he operated the stage coach and then became a lumber jack. He married Elin Newman and raised a family of nine children. Eric purchased the Pete Olson homestead.

Big Eric became a fulltime logging contractor in 1915 and devoted the rest of his life to this profession. The six foot three inch Eric became the "Paul Bunyon" of the area. He lost money on all his contracts but ended up a fairly wealthy man. Many feature articles were written about his deceptive wit and unique ways of logging operations.

An example — One day a driver tipped over with a big load of logs near the Ravine River. Soon a large number of his crew gathered to gawk at the mess without taking action. Big Eric came by and soon perceived that his crew was standing around on company time, causing Big Eric to cry out! "Well, dammit boys lets do something. Don't just stand there like a geese with your hands in my pockets."

One day a representative of the Federal Tax Department stopped to verify his income tax statement. They stated they needed more information on his resources. Big Eric replied, "Riss horses - oh no! You got the wrong man, it's Sirard that's got riss horses. I just have six teams of •••• good logging horses."

Eric was an excellent woodsman. One time he had a Ford Company contract on Misery Bay. Ford officials threatened to shut down the job as they could not locate a section post. According to his son Lawrence, he and his dad set out to find the post. Eric measured three miles on his speedometer. They then got out of the car. Eric counted his paces west for about two hours. He then took out his compass and twenty minutes later came to the section post. Lawrence said, "Well Dad, what is so almighty special about this section post?" Eric replied, "Dem big shots from the Ford Company said they would give me a new Stetson hat if I found the section post."

Hi
FYI, there is a Huron River down here in SE Michigan. The parts that I'm familiar with, in the Ann Arbor area, are wider. There are some rocks.

Interesting to hear about Big Erick.

A nice bridge in a scenic location.

I just love bridges.