03-020: Roads

By Dorthea CalverleyThe first road in the district was an ox cart trail from Grouard to Peace River. This was built at the expense of the Hudson’s Bay Co., who sent Tom Kerr with some twenty men to locate and cut out the road. The Reverend Gough Brick did the first road improvement work west of Peace River. He hitched a plow to the back of his wagon, and plowed out a furrow from Shaftesbury Settlement to Dunvegan, plowing one side going and the other side coming back. Early settlers will remember this trail.

For several years after the province was formed in 1905, small appropriations were spent each year on the roads. In 1923 the government inaugurated a policy of road building, putting the work under the supervision of qualified engineers, since which time the work has gone ahead with amazing speed.

The road from Peace River to McLennan was built in 1925. In September of that year F. S. Wright, of Edmonton, came through with a path-finding car. He followed the trails wherever possible, and was hauled through the bush by teams where there was no trail. He arrived in Peace River on September 6th, having taken about ten days for the trip. The achievement created quite a sensation, and led to urgent petitions being sent to the government asking that a highway to Edmonton be opened up. Work on this highway was started the following year and completed in 1930.

Now it is a common sight during the summer season to see, on the streets of Peace River town, cars from New York and Ontario on the east to California and Vancouver on the west. As an example of the splendid condition of this road at times it might be cited that a traveler, in the fall of 1932, left Edmonton at 8 a.m., stopped for lunch en route, and was in Spirit River, a distance of 442 miles, at 8 p.m. the same day.

Thanks to an excellent system of maintenance these roads are kept in perfect condition, and are very favorably commented upon by travelers from older parts of the province and also from the United States.

 

[ca 1973]