TRANSCRIPT

One of the real pleasures of working in conservation in North America is that the structures, the buildings that we work with, the objects, they're not terribly old, and so, there are couple of benefits to that. One is usually a pretty good documentary and photographic record, if one takes the time to dig deep enough. And secondly, it's possible to still connect with some of the people who had practical, on the ground experience of these places, and that's exactly the case with Ralph. Ralph was the Senior Bridge engineer for CN, Western Mountain region, for years, he served his whole career with CN, and the Kinsol was, I think, really the feather in his cap, he's very fond of it, among some two thousand bridges that he was responsible for, two or three thousand bridges, some fantastic number. Anyway, we early on made contact with Ralph through Cowichan Valley Archive.

We discovered that there was some photographs and some early copies, or the, copies of the CN files. Ralph steered us toward the Museum and Archives, and then we hooked up with Ralph at the first opportunity after that. That was just, ah, that was enormously enjoyable, as well as being a wealth of new information...we've stayed in constant touch with him, we have done ever since the project began. In many respects those of us who are working on the bridge feel like Ralph is the real client, that we're there to sort of meet the expectations of. Of course on a practical level we deal with the CVRD and we always have the MOTI keeping a watching (brief?), but it feels, in a really down-to-earth sort of way like Ralph is the real client here."