The new bridge from Edmundston to Maine opened to most traffic on June 6. Every day, a handful of curious Edmundston retirees gather near the Canada Border Services Agency building on the St. John River.
"It's pretty much my whole life. I spent my life spanning the bridge," says Don Levesque, an American and the retired publisher of a weekly newspaper on the U.S. side who lives in Edmundston.Locals on both sides tell stories of frequent trips across the border to shop, to go to movies, to play baseball or basketball, or to visit relatives or go on dates.
Between 2,200 and 2,500 cars per day used the old bridge to cross the border here in the years before COVID-19 shutdowns, according to both the Maine and New Brunswick governments.But the old steel-truss bridge was deteriorating. In 2017 the two governments imposed weight restrictions that forced trucks to detour to other international bridges 25 minutes upriver or 35 minutes downriver.
The British wanted the line drawn south of here, allowing them access to more of the white pine used to build ships. At the U.S. end of the bridge is a sculpture of a large yellow star — a tribute to the shared francophone Acadian roots of the two communities. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed that, leading to the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a more rigid American approach to enforcing the boundary.
The new U.S. Customs building on the U.S. side of the new bridge. Post-Sept. 11 U.S. security regulations require any new Customs and Border Patrol building to meet strict size and capacity standards.