Fonds P235 - Michael Grayson fonds

Michael Grayson grew up in England and graduated as a civil engineer in 1961. He emigrated to Canada a year later and settled down in British Columbia. He designed various structures in steel and concrete, prior to entering the emerging glue-laminated timber structure industry. As chief engineer of a glulam production plant, he was responsible for the design and fabrication of two major structures for Expo 67 (Montreal).
His work on a coal-export terminal in North Vancouver motivated him to acquire the skills to assess the environmental impacts of engineering projects during the design stage. He studied for a Master’s degree in Transportation and Environmental Planning (London UK).
In the early to mid-1970s, he worked for Quebec’s Municipal Affairs Department, as a transport and regional planner for a large area centered on Mirabel Airport, under construction at that time. After this, he took a different direction, going “back-to-the-land” and farming organically for a few years.
Returning to transport planning in the 1980s, he worked with the Quebec Government to study and develop public transport options in and around Montreal. In the early 1990s, he produced a Plan de transport for the City of Sherbrooke, with an emphasis on public transport, pedestrians and cyclists. After this, he participated in several projects of converting disused railway lines into cycling and multi-purpose trails (“Rails to Trails”). Design projects for cycling and walking trails in Stanstead and Danville focused on heritage buildings and the rich history of these communities. His love of old buildings and his expertise in timber structures led to a new orientation at this point.
In 1996, Quebec’s Religious Heritage Program allows many of the province’s churches (those that had been judged to have outstanding historic and/or architectural value) became eligible for restoration funding. With funding from the Ministry of Culture, Mr. Grayson assessed the state of dozens of Protestant churches in the Townships, as well as in other parts of Quebec. He managed restoration projects on a large number of these heritage buildings, dating from the 1830s onward. Other conservation and/or transformation projects included town halls, academies, barns and museums.
In the late 1990s, he broadened this focus to include the conservation and restoration of covered bridges, stirred into action by Compton’s intention to demolish Pont Drouin, formerly the Spafford Bridge. Since then, he has worked on many covered bridges across Quebec, including nearly all of those remaining in the Townships. The most memorable of these is the Powerscourt Bridge on the Chateauguay River, built in 1861 and a unique surviving example of a rare truss type (McCallum). Quebec’s Transport Department hired him to assess the condition of a large number of the 80+ covered bridges left in the province (out of nearly 1500 at one time). He has also written restoration guidelines for these historic and durable structures, which from 2010 became his sole engineering focus.