= AS SENS —— >. ae SSS a Se <= ES OE SED SSE +. a ae m oe on} et - 5 ee Pe | > é =i Thor 4p es La oi id re it os pial Gili} a a Page A10 Cassiar Courier June 1989 Supplement British Columbia’s Northwestern Frontier Flying Northwest from Hazelton, 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 border - 400 miles of wild, beau- tiful, little known country. It ,is little known except to the Indians, the occasional trapper oY prospector or the more recent road survey and prospecting par- ties that have pushed their way into its inner valleys or high country. Averaging 300 miles in width from 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 Kingdom. Until. recently, the plane would cross only one road, some 240 miles from its takeoff, a narrow dirt mountain road con- connecting the historical Tele- graph 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. ee woulassCrossecichnas latter road in the region of. a lake with the delightful, tongue- twisting name of Eddontenajon. Ata no s.other pornte. ins chs 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 of the Haines Junction cutoff and a short section of the White Pass and Yukon Railway in the extreme northwest corner do little more than cross the bound- aries. Now the nearly completed 350 mile road, connecting Watson Lake on the Alaska Highway with Stew- art on the Portland Canal 120 air miles; snorth —~of*-Prince ~ Rupert? forms a line dividing the north- west section (roughly one-third) from the rest of this huge area. Intended originally to pro- vide shorter and cheaper access to tide water for the Cassiar As- ‘bestos 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 seems some doubt at this time that Cassiar will take advantage of this route. Built to good standards, 28 feet wide and des- igned for fast ore-carrying tran- sports, it will open up a_ large. slice of this country to more general development. Already many other mining companies are Saking an active interest in areas that will be more acces- sible. The recreational potential is enormous. Fabulous’ fishing, hunting, camping and sightseeing will be possible for those will- ing to drive the distances neces- sary. For those wishing to fly into remote lakes or _ sightsee from the air, aircraft will un- doubtedly be available along the vay. When the Provincial Depart- ment of Mines initiated this pro- ject and began surveys during the 1950s, they had only 70 miles of very low grade dirt road to Cas- siar from the Alaska Highway. A 40 mile road of even lower grade ‘connected Cassiar to the north end of Dease Lake, from which a boat was the only connection to the south end of the lake and the narrow road giving tenuous access to Telegraph Creek to the west. The new road strikes south- ward as though leaving Telegraph Creek to its past dreams of gran- deur. Involved in the early gold rushes to the Stikine in the 1860s and later the Klondike, this outpost 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 At- lantic 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 Alaska Highway the need for this also died. During the early surveys of the northern end of the new road supplies, equipment and personnel were all flown in to camps by Bact sYaukon= Ain =Serviice,.-a: pi; oneering 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 resources, the Department of Highways took over the engineering - and contract administration from the Depart- ment of Mines though the road was still being built for the latter department. Coinciding with the surveys in the north a start was made on surveys from Stewart at the southern end of the route. All supplies came from the north for surveys made as far south as Kinaskan Lake, the halfway point between Watson Lake and the next nearest air base at TELLEACE:. For points south of Kinas- kan, Terrace was the supply base with an important auxiliary base at Meziadin Lake about 100 miles north of Terrace. From Meziadin, crews were made mobile with heli- copters and fly camps until the Bell Irving River was reached. Here a fixed wing landing was developed and planes brought in helicopter fuel, camp supplies and all equipment for surveys from this point. AtVChiS-<-timess most Of iibhe fixed wing flying from the south was done by Pacific Western Air- lines, with the Okanagan, Vancou- ver Island and Pacific Helicopter companies providing helicopters for varying periods. A year after the supplies started from the south, one of the PWA pilots combined with other local people in the Terrace area to form a new company - Trans-Provincial Airlines Ltd. The contract to supply the needs of the camps gave the airline its start and the local demand for float-equipped aircraft the impetus to grow until today, ten years later, it has become one of the more important feeder air- lines of the Canadian North.: INn@eLyosy after it had reached a total of four aircraft, the company began a_ substantial expansion program. It took over the PWA Prince Rupert-Alice Arm- Stewart route, the B.C. Airlines operation out of Prince Rupert to Masset, Sandspit and Ocean Falls and, more recently, the Omineca Air Services with bases at Smithers and Burns Lake. With each it also took over a number of aircraft, and with the recent addition of a DC-3 and corres- ponding increase in personnel, Trans-Provincial Airlines now feel equipped to cope with the tremendous business potential of the territories to the north of their main base at Terrace. Following the surveys, cons- truction of the new road started in the early sixties and for this, aircraft were also much in demand. Work has now reached roughly the 250 mile point from the Alas- ka Highway and some 70 miles’ out from Stewart. When the remainina 28 or so miles of road are comp- leted in the next year or two, TPA can look forward to a further expansion of the need for air facilities in this vast area. Out of the requirements of the road builders grew an airline which in turn will benefit from -the development of the country as a whole. Already it is servicing remote camps and communities, mines and prospecting centres far enough from the road to rely entirely at this point on the aircraft for everything they need. In some cases no other access is possible - mail, food, equipment, personnel all go in or out by air. It is not unusual for, Say, a piece of vital machinery to be ordered in Van- couver in the morning and be delivered by airline to Prince Rupert and then airlifted by TPA to a mine or prospecting camp the same day. Already plans to extend to road system are developing. A subsidiary road has been built south from the completed Stewart section to Meziadin Lake and to a fisheries station on the north side of the Nass River. A_ log- ging road north from Terrace has reached the south side of the Nass opposite the fisheries sta- tion. All that is required is a bridge over the Nass to give road connection between Terrace and Stewart. However, upgrading of: the upper section of the log- ging road and the fisheries sec- tion will be necessary before the road would be adequate for public use. A local road paralleling the Kispiox River north of Hazelton offers another potential connec~ ting road to the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. It is now only 30 or 40 miles short of the Nass River at the proposed crossing. This approach would give ae shorter route to Stewart from the inter- formu Of British Columbia via Highway 16. As the construction of the road progressed southward from Dease Lake and eastward from Stewart, landing strips for wheeled aircraft were built on or Continued on Page 12 +t fe ani ~ mre Ne ~4251ar Courier June 1989 Supplement “Page All