On November 2 of 2009, the province celebrates the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Hope-Princeton Highway.

The construction of a southern route linking the interior of B.C. with the Lower Mainland had a profound effect on the development of communities in the lower portion of the southern interior. No longer would travellers have to make the long, circuitous trek down the Fraser canyon, cutting travelling times by several hours and reducing the trip by 100 miles.

The Hope-Princeton Highway certainly wasn’t built overnight. In fact, it was roughly 103 years in the making

The first inroads across the mountains upon which the Hope-Princeton would cross took place in 1846 when Alexander Caulfield Anderson was commissioned by the Hudson’s Bay Company to locate a road from the Fraser canyon through the Hope mountains to Kamloops. In 1860, Edgar Dewdney’s famous trail was built, crossing the southern interior from the coast to the Kootenays east of Cranbrook.The trail cost a total of $105, 000 - $31,000 of which was spent only on the Hope to Princeton portion.

Meagre attempts to improve the trail took place over the decades that followed. The province promised, but failed for many years to deliver and the south Okanagan and Similkameen’s cries for improvements fell on deaf ears in Victoria. Railways became the dominant form of transportation in the early part of the 21st century, and the push for better highways came slowly.

Rough surveys took place to map out a possible route through the Cascades in 1902 and 1903. It was ascertained that grades of eight per cent would be required for the 95 mile stretch between Hope and Princeton, and had the First World War not broken out, the road might have been constructed at this time. Indeed, 20 miles out of Hope, and 14 out of Princeton were built at the time. But after the war, the federal government, who was responsible for distribution of post war reconstruction funds, preferred the Fraser canyon route for a trans provincial link, and that sealed the fate of the Hope-Princeton for several years.

Improvements in earth moving technology continued through the tens and early twenties, rekindling interest in the project. It was during these years that surveyors ultimately came upon Allison Pass as the favoured route through the mountains, and once again it seemed as though work would begin imminently on the route.

Then came 1929, and the Great Depression.

Road construction in the province in general came to a crashing halt as money dried up, but a new form of labour evolved that enabled the province to continue work on the Hope-Princeton to at least some degree - relief camps that were instituted by the federal Department of National Defence.

By May of 1930, a $50,000 work order was issued for Princeton to Roche River and a $30,000 work order at the Hope end had four additional miles built. A tote road to Sunday Creek on the Princeton end was also constructed. By 1932, a total of $450,000 had been spent on the road since 1911.

Relief camps put many unemployed men to work and allowed the province to at least begin work on several road projects that had been delayed for some time.

A relief camp of 100 men was put to work on the Yellow Lake section of Highway 3A near the old Parker ranch in order to construct a new road that would get the road away from the narrow, steep and winding Parker hill road. At the same time, 100 men worked out of four camps- at Friday Creek, Copper Creek, the junction of the Roche and Pasayten Rivers, and a fourth camp further west. With plans to beef up the number of workers by another 150 men later in the year it was hoped that the road would make it through Allison Pass.

Camps were even larger on the Hope side of the pass, because of the proximity to Vancouver and the larger numbers of unemployed found there. The men working the western end made it to the Skagit bluffs before giving up. They did not return to the project until 1938.

The men in the relief camps were working for 20 cents a day, mostly involved in manual labour, so it was not much wonder that not much was accomplished.

In the Tulameen, the Coalmont Board of Trade began a massive campaign to lobby the province to build the road through the Nicolum River and Eight Mile Creek valleys, but the steepness and narrow nature of the river valleys made provincial engineers shudder. In 1929, Allison Pass was confirmed as the routing of the future highway.

By June of 1932 the provincial Economy Commission asked for some figures with respect to costs incurred to date, as well as the cost of completion and maintenance of a route through the mountains from Hope to Princeton. The answers provided indicated that it would cost $350,000 to build it and $2,500 per mile per year to maintain it. That was enough to put the project on the back burner, even though it was still part of the federal relief program.

By 1936 the National Defense work camps were closed and the relief work returned to provincial jurisdiction, with the Dominion, or federal government, supplying some funding. From 1936 until 1942, work on the Hope-Princeton slowed to a virtual standstill. An estimate for construction in that year (1942) put the cost at 1.54 million dollars, once again too rich for provincial coffers, which meant that the work was relegated to the limited means of Japanese interns through the war.

Citizens of the interior were not taking the province’s inactivity on the highway lightly during this time. Tired of the years of promises and lack of invested effort to get the job done, the communities most affected formed the Hope-Princeton Road Association in 1938. Sixty thousand dollars was raised to lobby the government in every way possible, and the cry for action reached its loudest just as the Second World War broke out.

By 1944, headlines in the Penticton Herald noted that the “Hope Road is No.1 on Post-War Works’ Lists.”

Premier John Hart, speaking at an engagement at the Incola Hotel in Penticton declared that “completion of the Hope-Princeton highway is the very first consideration of the B.C. post-war program of public works.” He assured the gathering that this was not an idle promise, but was government policy, with funding to boot, to which he received a rousing round of applause.

With the end of the war in 1945, work on the road had progressed to the point where a few steely nerved travellers were attempting to make the trip over the Hope-Princeton.

“Between 70 and 80 Cars Drive Over Hope-Princeton,” declared one headline, stating further that 30 vehicles made the trip that Labour Day weekend.

One hardy motorist, who made the trip over and back again, declared that the journey could be completed in about four and a half hours. The road was “surfaced” over the first 50 miles out of Princeton, to the point where it became a tote road through the mountains. On the western end, from Tashme to Hope was also good road, easily covered by the automobiles of the day.

The road in between was described as “not impassable, but rough, with only one bridge in and three creeks that had to be forded, but the “rivers were low.” The Skagit bluffs area was one spot considered rough, even by the standards of the day back then.

Other reports stated that there was “eight miles of second gear” travel near the summit, but “the rest of the road could be driven in high gear at 40 miles per hour for a good part of the way.”

Later in 1945, headlines revealed that “Final Construction Of The Hope-Princeton Highway Commences.” It was the news that all in the Okanagan Similkameen had been waiting decades to hear. A Penticton Herald story from December 1945 revealed that, “In commenting on the Hope-Princeton road, “Construction World” magazine states that the construction is going to be a gigantic task. It has gripped the imagination of contractors right across Canada, as witness the many firms outside British Columbia who have looked into the plans and offered bids.”

By early 1946, contracts had been let out to four different contractors for the remaining sections of road. (Included in the work was the section of highway from Keremeos to Kaleden.) The Hedley to Keremeos section was done using day labour at a cost of $366,318.

The remaining sections of highway did not come cheap; cost overuns for the four original contracts amounted to 166 per cent of original estimations.

Excitement was building at the prospect of a direct route to the coast finally becoming a reality, throughout the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys during the summer of 1949. In late July, the Herald was reporting that the Hope-Princeton was to be open by fall, and that construction was to be speeded up to allow this to happen.Eric Ramseden, a reporter for the Herald was taken on a tour of the nearly complete road. He wrote:

“After 23 years of reporting Board of Trade resolutions urging completion of the road I have seen it and it is an accomplishment that will forever make B.C’s name known for vision, for persistent accomplishment in the face of odds, and for one of the finest road building jobs on the North American continent.

The beauty of it is something that will inspire poets. It is a magnificent road in a magnificent section of a magnificent province that dominates everything that British Columbia can offer.”

Eric’s tour of the new highway was complete except for a nine mile section of road around the Allison pass. It took the rest of the summer and part of the fall, but by Wednesday, November 2, 1949, the culmination of 103 years worth of effort was complete.

The new highway was officially opened in a simple ceremony at Allison pass that was witnessed by thousands of motorists who came from both directions to celebrate a defining moment in the history of transportation in the province.

Charlie Bonniver, a prospector out of Princeton, was the first official traveller to cross over the pass, with then provincial premier Byron Johnson holding open the gate while he passed through. Bonniver was originally supposed to go through the gate on a fully equipped pack horse in a symbolic gesture to the pioneer trails that were once the only means of access to the area, but the horse balked and Charlie had to make the crossing on foot.

A large caravan of vehicles made the trip from Penticton to the grand opening, along with three chartered Greyhound buses. Politicians and prominent community members represented all aspects of life in the Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, and in Keremeos, grade two school children stood on the road side waving flags and a banner that stated, “We will grow with Keremeos” at the passing throng of traffic.

The day was celebrated in editorials across the province, but most particularly in the South Okanagan and Similkameen, where anticipation of a new day in trade and commerce for the interior was dawning.

The opening of the highway was a “great day” in the interior’s history, one editorial remarked. “It marked the breaking of a dam which hitherto has done so much to stop a ready flow of traffic from the populous lower mainland of the province by the most direct route to the interior.”