Pont Rouge, Sainte-Agathe-de-Lotbinière, Quebec, Canada

© Jean Surprenant/Getty Image

Info. Pont Rouge

This covered bridge near the small town of Sainte-Agathe-de-Lotbinière was one of about 1,500 built in Quebec, Canada, between the late 1800s and the 1950s. 'Ponts rouges' (often called this whether or not they were painted red) were built wherever rural French Canadians required a convenient river crossing. But the bridges were replaced in great numbers when the road network was improved in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, fewer than 100 still stand in Quebec, and some – like this one built in 1928 over the Palmer River – are protected for historic preservation.