British Columbia’s Northwestern Frontier

FLYING NORTHWEST from Hazel-
ton, the most northerly community on
Highway 16 in the Bulkley Valley, a
plane covers 400 miles in a straight line
to reach Teslin just over the Yukon bor-
der—400 miles of wild, béautiful, little
known country. It is little known except
to the Indians, the occasional trapper or
prospector or the more recent road survey
and prospecting parties that have pushed
their way into its inner valleys or high
country.

Averaging 300 miles in width trom the
Alaska Highway to the Alaska Panhandle,
this vast area, 120,000 square miles, forms
nearly one-third of British Columbia or

twice the land area of the United King-
dom.

Until recently, the plane would cross
only one road, some 240 miles from its
takeoff, a narrow dirt mountain road con-
necting the historical Telegraph Creek
community with Cassiar and the outside
world. Now at roughly the halfway point
it would cross a new gravel road of high
standard — a completed section of the
Stewart to Cassiar highway. It would
cross this latter road in the region of a
lake with the delightful, tongue-twisting
name of Eddontenajon.

At no other point in this vast territory
does a road intrude for more than a few

miles, The logging roads north of Terrace
and Hazelton in the south, the 40 miles
of road to Atlin from the Yukon border,
a section af the Haines Junction cutoff
and a short section of the White -Pass
and Yukon Railway in the extreme narth-
west corner do little. more than cross the
boundaries.

Now the nearly completed 350-mile
road, connecting Watson. Lake on. the
Alaska Highway with Stewart on the
Portland Canal 120 air miles north of
Prince Rupert, forms a line dividing the
northwest section (roughly one-third)
from the rest of this huge area.

Intended originally to provide shorter
‘and cheaper access to tide“water for the
Cassiar Asbestés Mine, which at present
transports its ore to Whitehorse by road
for rail shipment to Skagway, the road
will now have a much wider purpose and
there scems some doubt at this time that
Cassiar will take advantage of this route.
Built to good standards, 28 feet wide and
designed for fast ore-carrying transports,
it will open up a large slice of this coun-
try to more gencral development. Already
-many other mining companies are taking

vy

Page 18

an active interest in arcas- that will be
more accessible.

The recreational potential is cnormous.
Fabulous fishing, hunting, camping and
sightsecing will be possible for those will-
ing to drive the distances necessary. For
those wishing to fly into.remote lakes or.
sightsee from the air, aircraft will un-
doubtedly be available along the way.

When the Provincial Department of
Mines initiated this project and began
surveys during the 1950s, they had only
70 miles of very low grade dirt road to
Cassiar fram the Alaska Highway. A 40-
mile road pf even lower grade connected
Cassiar to the north end of Dease Lake,
from which a boat was the only con-
nection to the south end of the lake and
the narrow road giving tenuous access to
Telegraph Creek to the west.

The new road strikes southward as
though leaving Telegraph Creek to its
past dreams of grandeur. Involved in the
carly gold rushes to the Stikine in the
1860s and later the Klondike, this out- .
post was planned as an important station
on an ambitious project, a telegraph line
from New York to London via Alaska and
Asia. But completion of the Atlantic
Cable did away with this need. However,
it did become a station on a telegraph
line: from Ashcroft to Atlin and Dawson
City, but with the advent of the Aiaska
Highway the need for this also died.

During the early surveys of the north-
ern end of the new road supplies, equip-
ment and personnel were all flown in to
camps by B.C.: Yukon Air Service, a
pioneering bush-pilot operation based on
Watson Lake in the Yukon. Float planes
were used exclusively in order to take
advantage of the many lakes in the area.

With the wider vision of developing

_ the road as access to the general re-
sources, the Department of Highways
took over the engincering and contract
administration from the Department of
Mines though the road was still being
built for the latter department.