Volume 11, 1958 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL XI No.3
THE ARCTIC CIRCULAR
Road programme in northern Canada
The Canadian government is planning major road
programmes in the Yukon and Northwest Territories to extend
over the next few years. Construction is already underway on
a number of projects.
In the Yukon a development road will be built northeast
from the existing Yukon road system at Flat Creek, about 25 miles
southeast of Dawson, for 200 miles to the Eagle Plain Reservation,
where large-scale exploration for oil is now in progress. This
road is estimated to cost about $14,000,000. Detailed surveys
were made during the past summer and contracts for construction
will be let by early 1959.
Three bridges are being built at a total cost of about
$3,000,000 where the Whitehorse-Keno Highway crosses the
Yukon, Pelly, and Stewart rivers. The bridge across the Yukon
at Carmacks was started in 1958 and all three should be completed
by 1961. These bridges will replace summer ferries and winter
ice bridges, and will make year-round traffic possible. At present
freeze-up and break-up interrupt travel along the road for a total
of some three months each year.
The programme begun last year to renovate the
130-mile section of the Canol Road between Johnsons Crossing
on the Alaska Highway and Ross River was completed in 1958 at
a cost of about $270,000. The Canol Road was built during the
war to serve the Canol pipeline from Norman Wells to Whitehorse.
It has been abandoned for several years but prospectors have
urged the repair of this western section of the road to assist
mineral exploration in the promising Ross River area.
The last major project in the Yukon Territory is a
200-mile roa.d west from Ross River to Watson Lake, and a
U5-mile road from Ross River to Carmacks. Estimated cost of
the entire project is some $20,000,000.