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Page Al2 Cassiar Courier June 1989 Supplement

cont'd from p.10

near the road by the Department
of Highways or the road contrac-
tors.

Eventually, flight schedules
were set up by Trans-Provincial
Airlines and today a DC-3 and
Otter aircraft make regular runs
to Dease Lake with landings at
such inviting stops as Bob Quinn
Lake, Iskut and Eddontenajon.
Freight on these runs now aver-
ages about 10 tons ae week and
construction personnel are moved
in or out as required.

In conjunction with flights
to points on the established road
are visits to areas further west.
North and south of Telegraph
Creek on the Stikine River are
action centres of prospecting and
Mining. Here in the Coast Range
of mountains the scenery is’ fan-
tastic and unquestionably some of
the finest in British Columbia.
The huge glaciers flowing east
from the 7,000 to 10,000 foot
peaks of the Alaska Panhandle
provide a grandeur unequalled
elsewhere at this latitude. In
good weather it is an exciting,
unforgettable flight down the
B.C. boundary adjacent to the
Panhandle.

In the valleys cutting
deeply into this glacial region
further to the south are two of
the province's large modern mines
~ Granduc and B.C. Moly. In bet-
ween at the head of the Portland
Canal, 120 air miles north of
Prince Rupert, lies Stewart, the
port that sparked the idea of the
Stewart-Cassiar Highway.

Much of the new road runs
through the immense Stikine
Plateau which is surrounded by
the Rocky Mountains, the Coast,

Cassiar, Skeena and Omineca
Ranges. It is intersected by
deep valleys, has a beauty and
imcerneste. alls kts own. The

Stikine River flowing through the
centre of the plateau runs for
some miles through a canyon with
2,000 foot walls.

On the surface of the. plat-
eau, clearly visible from the
air, are extensive lava flows,
low mountains of obvious volcanic
Origin and incredibly beautiful
colorings in the rock and vegeta-
tion.

As the Surveyors worked
their way through this country
they had their problems and many
are the stories they can tell.
At one camp a boat was damaged
and sank and a party of eight
were marooned on one side of a
lake for eight days until a plane
rescued them. Q

At another the cook, alone
most of each day when the = survey
party was away working, was des-
perately afraid of the many bears
in the neighborhood. He ~built
himself a ladder up one side of a
camp shack as a retreat until he
learned that a bear could climb
his ladder, prompting him to
build another ladder down the far
side as an escape route.

Of the areas traversed by
the new road one of the more
interesting is the Iskut Valley,
a high plateau, semi-dry belt of
lodgepole pine, sparser vegeta-
tion and lighter snowfall than
elsewhere and lovely lakes of
which Kinaskan is an outstanding
example. S

Iskut itself, an Indian set-

by the Indians who moved to Tele-
graph Creek and returned only to
trap in winter. But when the
road came through, they returned
and re-established the village.
Close by is now a small store and
post office.

Further south near Refuge
Lake the surveyors found evidence
of the early line from Hazelton

to Telegraph Creek, poles still
standing, wire and the remains of
shacks, a reminder of those ear-
lier struggles and ambitions.

In the Bear Pass area of
road, a few miles northeast of
Stewart, is the only really dif-
Ficult section of road building
in the whole route. Here a glac-

-ier comes down to the road level

and a temporary 10 percent grade
(at no other point is the’ road
more than 7 percent) had to be
built to avoid it but will even-
tually be bypassed. In the Bear
Pass area surveyors were main-
tained by air drops and at one
point a lake at the foot of the
glacier broke its banks and
flooded the valley to Stewart.

But’ now that landing strips
are established and planes make
regular visits, maintenance
establishments on the road are no
longer isolated, in fact hardy
tourists are beginning to dribble
down this road to the end of con-
struction to see the scenery and
to try the fishing and hunting.
It is an area in which virtually
all the main game species in B.C.
are to be found. However, it is
still a 1,500 mile drive from
Vancouver to get well and truly
into this country via the Alaska
Highway, but it is one of the few
places in Canada where a car can
get into the hinterland that
still has nature in its original
beauty.

It is still, and will remain
for some time, a country depen-
dent on the airplane for its com-
munications and transportation.

This is the need for which
the Trans-Provincial Airlines has
aimed its expansion as a_ feeder
line to pick up and transport to
points on the perimeter of the
country where larger airlines
(CPA and PWA) with larger air-
craft can transport faster and
cheaper over the greater dis-
tances. So all TPA planes are

oriented to local services on a
50 percent schedule and 50 _ per-
cent charter basis.

Because of the difficulty of
finding and building landing
strips in the remoter areas of
the north, the emphasis is on
float or amphibious craft. Only
two planes are exclusively on
wheels - the DC-3 and the Otter.
As an indication of this, 95 per-
cent of the company's summer rev-

-enue is derived from floats.

At present TPA aircraft are
based at Burns Lake, Smithers,
Terrace, Prince Rupert, Ocean
Falls, Sandspit and Masset on the
Queen Charlotte Islands. On the
charter side it is interesting to
note that recently a group was
flown from Terrace to and = from
the Abbotsford Air Show in one
day, another group toa funeral
‘at Kelowna and still another to
the Peace River for a duck and
goose hunt.

In. common with most such
airlines it has its quota of
emergency. TPA averages probably

fersaken...one medical. flight every two days .

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to go on I.F.R.

but this aspect of the operation
is given little publicity.

The normal area of operation
by TPA is the whole of north-
western B.C. to the Yukon border
and from the northern tip of

Vancouver Island almost to Prince

George.

The company has radios
scattered throughout the north,
many in communities which are
dependent on TPA for everything.
All orders go by radio through
the main office in Terrace or
other bases and may include such

_Minor items as shoe laces, sweat-

ers, repairs to eyeglasses, maga-

zines, etc.

Some of the - more remote
landing strips are built and
maintained by the proverbial
Chinese crane (wheelbarrow and

shovel) because it is impossible
at this stage to get mechanical
equipment to these areas.

The economic progression of
such country seems to be...
first float planes, then heli-
copters, wheel planes, roads’ and
railways. Already there is
interest being shown in this

country by the railways - the
mining potential alone is
immense.

So Trans-Provincial Air-
lines, looking to the increasing
development of industry and com-
munities in the area, is planning
(Instrument
Flight Rule) with a beacon in the
north to which aircraft could fly
from Terrace on instruments, mak-
ing for safer and more consistent
schedules.

And so asroad and airline
grow side by side and TPA exemp-
lifies the importance of aircraft

to northern B.C. and to the whole

of the Canadian North. A new
frontier is well on the way to
being open.

But as a visitor and  sight-
seer, who could resist an itin-
erary with such intriguing names
as Snippaker, Tatsho, Kitsum-
kalum, Burrage River and Tatsa-
menie. It is hoped these names
will not become synonymous’ with
the terms exploitation and pollu-
tion, which can so often bé app-
lied to wilderness areas made.
accessible to industry.

(Reprinted from "The Asbestos
Sheet", July, 1971)

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Cassiar Courier

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1989 Su

Sareea rar Os 110 NE,
pplement Page Al3

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