AREAS TRIBUTARY TO THE HIGHWAY

For a great part of its length the highway passes through
country that is known to be geologically favourable for
the deposition of economic minerals but which has been
very little prospected. In other parts of the region the
same rock formations as those traversed by the highway
have yielded valuable deposits. The known mineral
occurrences along the highway indicate that similar develop-
ments may be expected in adjacent areas.

From Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson, development will
probably be confined to the non-metallic minerals, such as
salt, gypsum, and the fuels. Between Watson Lake and
Champagne, the highway crosses the Cassiar-Omineca
batholith and the Coast Range batholith, and skirts the
southwestern flank of the latter great intrusive practically
all the way from Champagne to the Alaska boundary.
The rocks bordering these two batholiths are o
with which mineral deposition is associated, and this part
of the road gives access to one of the most promising
prospecting fields in northwestern Canada.

Although the highway will have little effect on the
established mining operations of the re

f the type

gion it will greatly
facilitate prospecting and mining development in an area

from which we are justified in expecting important mineral
production.

The forest resources in the border section of northern
British Columbia and southern and southwestern Yukon
are sufficient to support any increased mineral or other
activity that may develop in these localities. In north-
eastern British Columbia and southeastern Yukon the valley
of the Liard and its tributaries constitute one of the most
valuable timber reserves, potentially, in northwestern
Canada. With the exception of some stands in the Slave
River Valley, this area is the only substantial source of
timber directly accessible to the Mackenzie Valley and
readily transportable to that great inland waterway. The
mineral developments of Yellowknife, Great Bear Lake,
and around Fort Norman suggest large potentialities in
this region in the development of which accessible timber
is vital.

There are substantial areas of agricultural land in
northeastern British Columbia within the range of influence
of the Alaska Highway. Potential agricultural land in the
Liard basin, now forested, may be better retained as forest
land. There is arable and grazing land along the highway
on the British Columbia-Yukon border for subsistence
farming, and for the needs of any immediately foreseeable
expansion of activities in that locality. The Takhini
Dezadeash Valley has a large area of good land, the agri-

cultural possibilities of which may be limited by rainfall .

and altitude; this is, however, the only section west of the
Liard basin where there is enough agricultural land in
one locality to form the basis of an agricultural community.
In this valley some 103 miles west of Whitehorse
along the highway, the Dominion Department of Agriculture

established an experimental farm in 1945. The first
crop was seeded in the summer of 1946 and resulted in
good samples of wheat, barley, and oats, and a large variety
of different kinds of vegetables.

The future of agriculture and forestry along the highway
in the British Columbia-Yukon section is linked with
the future of other natural resources and is likely always
to depend on the future of mining, which is the present
chief industry.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC

There have been many attempts to forecast the post-
war traffic over the highway. Much has been made of the
traffe possibilities of the connecting highway between
Haines (near Skagway) and the main Alaska Highway,
which it joins at a point 100 miles northwest of White-
horse. The prime feature of this 154-mile connection,
apart from its possibilities as giving direct access to promising
mineral territory, is that it furnishes a land bridge from
Alaska proper to the panhandle section of Alaska, between
which land communication is otherwise barred by the
tugged St. Elias Mountain Ranges. The normal and the
only alternative way of getting back and forth is by sea
or, in summer, through Skagway and thence via the White
Pass and Yukon rail and river route.

As a means of transporting freight, the Alaska Highway
cannot normally compete with water routes, or with
combined rail and water routes. Freight originating west
of the Rockies can be forwarded by boat to Skagway or
Haines and thence by rail and river or by highway more
cheaply than by the Alaska Highway route. The Haines
Cut-off, however, may offer some advantage over the rail
and river route to Alaska in speed of delivery as well as
in freighting costs, and if maintained is likely to be a com-
petitor for freight trafe now moved over the White Pass
and Yukon Railway. The port of Haines is close to Skagway

and on the same footing so far as rates by boat from the
south are concerned.

In a report by Mr. J. M. Wardle, Director of the
Surveys and Engineering Branch of the Department of
Mines and Resources,! October, 1943, it is stated that
freight hauled by truck from Haines to Whithorse at a
rate of 10 cents? per ton mile will cost $26 per ton, whereas
the freight rate from Skagway to Whitehorse over the
White Pass and Yukon Railway is $40 per ton (1943).
The report gives details of comparative freight costs from
Edmonton and Vancouver to Whitehorse and Fairbanks,
via the Alaska Highway as well as via rail and water routes.
The figures show that for points north of Whitehorse costs
are increasingly favourable to the use of the Haines road.
The latter route also has the advantage of only one handling
of freight at Haines for points beyond Whitehorse. The

™Much of the factual material in this section on highways has b
taken from Mr. Wardle’s report or has been supplied by him.

* Selected at that time as the minimum base rate probably necessary
to meet all expenses on that haul.

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