A GREAT PROJECT

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 33, 8 August 1934, Page 11

A GREAT PROJECT

VANCOTJVEE TO ALASKA

MIDNIGHT SUN HIGHWAY

(From "The Post's" Representative.) ■ VANCOUVER, July 23/

Tho Canadian and American Institutes of Civil Engineers, in convention in Vancouver, have endorsed, as praetieablo, tho project of extending the Pacific Highway, which connects Mexico with Vancouver, ,'a distance of 2000 miles, northward beyond Hazelton, the terminal of the' Provincial system of highways to Seward, on ;the .Pacific Ocean, thereby consummating tho most ambitious roading scheme of the preBent century. '

A group of London financiers, some months ago, visited British Columbia, and investigated the project, withholding any public pronouncement of their intentions. .

The cost of the work lias been estimated by a. Canadian- American commission at £2,800,000, made up as follows:—British Columbia, £1,450,000; Yukon, £940,000; Alaska, £410,000. This estimate covers only the cheapest typo of road, designed merely to make impassable routes passable. Of the 2200 miles between Vancouver and Fairbanks, more than 1000 miles have been built. The British ColivmbiaYukon link presents the most difficult engineering problem.

Pressure will again be brought to bear on the Governments of Canada and tho United States to, a finance the project, or to make it attractive to private capital by concessions in land and timber, and possibly petrol and oil taxes, to bo collected along the route. A supplementary proposal, for tho construction of landing fields, commends tho route as a span in the projected Imperial airway to link Great Britain, Canada, arid the Far East. Tho route boasts excellent flying conditions, and is free from fogs. American capitalists have already I jirescribed the terms on .which they are prepared to start work, but' it is hoped in Canada that British capital, which has-recently initiated important developi ment projects near Vancouver, will offer *o undertake tho building of the Midnight Sun Highway. Completed in threo years, it, will afford motorists a 4000-milo run, half through British, half through American territory, tap-, ping scenery ranging from sub-arctic to sub-tropical, over historic trails to tho Cariboo and Yukon goldfields, through tho awe-inspiring Fraser Canyon, hitherto tho greatest engineering feat in the New World, and the Pacific States of Washington, Oregon, and California.

The Seward Peninsula lies just across Bchring Strait from Siberia.