Look where we got to go this week! (26 photos)

After this week's training exercise under the International Bridge, representatives of the International Bridge Authority were kind enough to offer training participants a rare chance to walk over one of the bridge's arches.

Unfortunately, it was the beginning of a 12-hour shift for the Sault Ste. Marie Fire Services participants in the exercise, so they couldn't take the bridge tour.

SooToday.com, on the other hand, was bouncing like a keener kid in grade school, mouthing the words 'Pick me! Pick me!'

A few hours later, we were back in the company of International Bridge Authority Steeplejack Kevin Neveau, who shepherded us, along with a crew from St. Mary's Paper Ltd., over the southern-most arch of the International Bridge.

It was almost too windy to strap on the harnesses and make the trek.

But it stopped raining and calmed down just enough for us to go at about 1:30 p.m.

A steeplejack is a welder, a pipe fitter, a painter, an inspector and a cleaner, among other things.

Steeplejacks do all these things hundreds of feet in the air and in all kinds of weather.

One thing the job description usually fails to mention is tour guide.

But Neveau and his work partner did a fine job both of guiding the tour and managing to almost stay out of pictures.

That's not an easy thing to do when you're harnessed to a railing over a two-foot wide catwalk about 250 feet above the river.

The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge cost $20 million when it was built from 1960 to 1962, says the Michigan Department of Transportation facts and trivia website.

The bridge was designed by Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist & London of New York and weighs 125,000 tons, of which 114,000 tons are concrete and 11,000 tons are structural steel.

The deck is 145 feet above ground level at its highest point and the bridge has 124 feet minimum vertical clearance above low water in ship canals.

It's a steel truss arch bridge with suspended deck.

The bridge has three arches, with the two joined arches spanning the American lock on the Sault Michigan side and the single arch spanning the Canadian lock on the Sault Ontario side.

Yesterday's bridge tour went up to the top of the first arch on the American side and back down the same side.