The Petawawa Research Forest (PRF) was established in 1918 and is the oldest research forest in Canada. It is located along Highway 17, east of Chalk River, Ontario, and is part of Garrison Petawawa under the jurisdiction of the Department of National Defence. By special agreement, it is managed by the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre, under the Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada. The research undertaken at the PRF influences forest policy, industry, silvicultural practices, and private forest management practices across the country. Operational commercial harvests also occur at the PRF.
Meridian Road is an access road at the PRF and leads to research, forest management, and recreational sites. A multi-cell culvert system at Young’s Creek recently failed (bottom left), and the crossing needed large-scale maintenance to allow the continued movement of logging trucks, vehicles, and research teams. The culvert failure negatively impacted water flow and habitat. To rectify these issues, a modern, single-lane engineered wood product (EWP) bridge, named Centennial Bridge (bottom right), was installed and built by Corington Engineering Inc., of Renfrew, Ontario. The experience at the PRF is of interest to sustainable forest licence (SFL) holders (and municipalities) looking to gain more knowledge about the construction and design of EWP access road bridges. The goal of this case study was to highlight the main construction and design details of Centennial Bridge and draw some comparisons to conventional steel-logging road bridges.