Trans-Canada Highway
The original highway between Revelstoke and Golden followed the Columbia River around the Big Bend to avoid crossing Rogers Pass. Between 1956 and 1962 a new highway was built over the pass to shorten the route, which now formed part of the Trans-Canada Highway. This also allowed the construction of Mica Dam, which flooded part of the Big Bend as Kinbasket Lake.
A number of snow sheds and earth dams are used to protect the Rogers Pass highway from avalanches. Rogers Pass is home to the largest mobile avalanche control program in the world. Parks Canada and the Department of National Defence work together to keep the pass safe for traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway and the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline.
Read more about this topic: Rogers Pass (British Columbia)
Famous quotes containing the word highway:
“The improved American highway system ... isolated the American-in-transit. On his speedway ... he had no contact with the towns which he by-passed. If he stopped for food or gas, he was served no local fare or local fuel, but had one of Howard Johnson’s nationally branded ice cream flavors, and so many gallons of Exxon. This vast ocean of superhighways was nearly as free of culture as the sea traversed by the Mayflower Pilgrims.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)