The Impact of New Highways Upon Wilderness Areas

The Impact of New Highways sound motor vehicle and the willingness to endure a few minor hardships. (Fig. 1.) upon Wilderness Areas In Yukon Territory by 1951, highways hadconnected Dawson and Mayo with the Opinions with respect to whether it is in the outside world at Whitehorse. During the next public interest to construct roads into wilder- twenty years theYukon Territory opened ness areas of Alaska and the Canadian terri- the Robert CampbellHighway fromCar- tories are varied. Ernest Gruening, governor macks to Watson Lake via Ross River and of Alaska from 1939 to 1953, says, “High- brought to minimum standards for summer ways are indispensabmle to development and use theold Canol PipelineRoad andthe settlement.”l George W. Rogers of the Insti- Nehanni Ridge Road. Construction of the tute of Social, Economic and Government DempsterHighway began in 1959, when it Research deplores the fact that development was known asthe Flat Creek-EaglePlains has been “a simple linear process which either Road.6 Renamed the Dempster Highway in pretended there were no side effects or 1962, construction has now been completed ignored everything but the desires of the to Mile 166. exploiter.”” Alaska during the same period completed Muchtime has been devoted to impact roads to the Yukon River at both Eagle and studies of new or improved highways on a point near old Fort Hamlin northwest of urban and rural areas,3 and much energy has Livengood, a connection from theRichard- been devoted to studies of the impact of new son Highway to McKinley Park,and a or improved highways on commercial, resi- through highway paral’leling the Alaska Rail- dential or recreational developments. Bucksar road from Anchorage to Fairbanks. and Lotz have even studied the behaviour of Concern forthe environmentthrough squatters along highways and on the margins which a highway passed was undreamed of of settlements in the N0rth.4~5 However, the in the early 1800s, and even 150 years later main thrust of these studies and of most re- few actuallyworry about highway impact. search has been towards what happens to a Gruening’s article,l written in 1953, does not settled countryside. recognize environmentaldegradation as a In Alaska andthe CanadianTerritories problem. Since 1953, however, concern for today the stage of development of the coun- the environment has developed both in and tryside at the time of highway construction out of the North, butthere certainly is no comparesin many ways tothat of eastern agreement at the present time concerning the North America inthe early 1800s. Justas role highways shouldplay in development, the Nationacl Pike was pushed west from the nature and extent of damage to the wil- Baltimore through wilderness areas after the derness, or even whether there is any perma- Revolution, so the Richardson Highway was nent environmentaldamage when a new completed duringthe first quarter of the highway is built. twentieth century through country in a com- All authoritiesagree that changes inthe parable stage of development. visible landscape do begin with the construc- The Alaska Highway in 1942 gave access tion of a highway through a wilderness area to the road system of south central Alaska of the Arctic or Subarctic. A preponderance by connection with the Richardson Highway of opinion favours the view that the benefits atDelta Junction. Atthe sametime this to be derived from new highways doout- trunk highway fromthe UnitedStates and weigh the undesirable side effects, and plans Western Canada provided a land connection forfuture highway construction in Alaska, to southeastern coastal Alaska via the White theYukon, and NorthwestTerritories tend Pass and Yukon Railroad at Whitehorse and to indicatethis to be the official view as a water connection for passengers and freight well.7 with the river settlements of theYukon The background of conflicting opinions, throughregularly scheduled steamboat ser- claims, and counter-claims which have been vice. Most of the principal British Columbia, building to the present intensity for several Yukon, and Alaskan settlements were linked years promptedthis study. Much relevant together by this onearterial highway. The information was obtained by interviews with Glenn Highway andTok Cut-Off construc- knowledgeable individualsprior to actually tion broughtAnchorage into the system in visiting these areasand travelling the 1943. Thus at the conclusion of World War highways. Those interviewed included gov- 11, Anchorage and the Cook Inlet-Kenai ernment officials, highway department em- region as well as the TananaValley and Fair- ployees, fish andgame personnel, and banks were accessible to anyone in the United researchers at the universities of Alaska and States or Canada who possessed a reasonably Alberta, as well as private individuals includ- SHORT PAPERS AND NOTES 69 70 SHORT PAPERSAND NOTES ing hunting guides, resort operators, bankers, ment progresses. editors, and long-time residents of Alaska One of these roads, theTAPS (Trans- and theYukon. Alaska Pipeline System) HaulRoad, com- Duringthe spring and summer of 1972 pleted in 1970 for 55.5 miles from Highway approximately 8,000 miles of Alaskan and 2 near Livengood, Alaska, tothe Yukon Yukon Territorial highways were travelled River, hadnot yet been opened for public in an effort to gain first-hand knowledge of use in the summer of 1972. The recent con- presentconditions along thecorridors of troversy overthe proposed construction of highways which had been built through wil- a highway paralleling the Trans-Alaska Pipe- derness areasduring the past thirty years line and generalconcern forthe Alaskan (Fig. 1). landscape have placed the oil companies and As was to be expected, dwellings, business their contracting agent on the defensive with establishments, and touristaccommodations the public. Consequently, more than theusual were mostconcentrated in the vicinities of planning andcare havegone intothe con- Whitehorse and Dawson in Yukon Territory, struction of this highway. Infact, this andin Anchorage,Fairbanks, andDelta project might be considered an experiment Junction in Alaska. In those localities, high- designed to develop the techniques by which ways, air facilities, and insome cases, rail- a first class heavy duty highway can be con- roads and watertransportation converged. structed through the subarctic forest with a Radiating outward from these centres along minimum permanent impact on the environ- the highways various structureshave been ments where highway construction and land- built and modified with all types of materials scaperestoration are anythingbut easy. and quality of workmanship. Many, although Permafrost is located close to the surface and abandoned, still remainsurrounded by the cannot always be avoided. Insome places accumulated debris of twentieth century fron- relief is of the order of 1,500 feet. Many tier life. This rubbish, left where it finally swamp areas are scattered through this pre- became unusable, economically unrepairable, dominantly spruce-birch forest of the Yukon- or unsalable, is a characteristic feature of Tanana uplands. However, Hess Creek is the these highway corridors andthe Alaskan- only stream of any size which hadto be Yukon landscape. Commercial establishments bridged. in these crossroads communities are housed The result of allthe controversy,public in all sorts of structures, including log cabins debate and carefulplanning is a highway and house trailers. which is a joy to behold. Broad sweeping Incontrast to the highly individudized curves carrying the traveleralong the con- structures andrandom arrangementsalong tours of the low mountainsopen vistas of the older highways and incrossroads com- valley after valley until finally thebroad munities which have grown up after highway loops of the Yukon River itself can be seen construction are the company towns of the through gaps in the tributary valleys. Yukonsuch as Clinton Creek andFaro. Much has been written about the retarded These settlementsdid not grow but were pace of revegetation in the Subarctic. No at- built according to a plan which included the tempt to revegetate a highway corridor under provision of all services and facilities. These these conditions ever was attempted on this communities exhibit the orderly newness of scale before. No one knew whether highway mass-produced buildings constructedunder cuts, push areas, fills, and permafrost expo- contract and arranged geometrically in a sures really could be stabislized and healed cleared area. To the traveller who has driven before erosion set in. However, the condi- many miles through the wilderness theap- tions imposed upon the Burgess Construction pearance of a companytown comes asa Company and TAPSleft no choice. The land- shock, but thisimpact is preferable to that scape had to be restored, and the first neces- of the unplannedagglomerations of sub- sity was to stabilize the sides of cuts, fills, standard dwellings found elsewhere. permafrost exposures, and push areas. In contrast to these older highways and Permafrost stabilization was achieved theirsomewhat settled corridors, stand the where ice lenses were exposed by leaving the new roads under construction and still to be road cuts with perpendicular sides. When an completed through virtually unsettled areas. ice lens supporting the overburden of soil Here it is possible to see the road through the and vegetation melted away, the unsupported wilderness cnvironmentwithout any com- overburdengradually slumped toform a plicating

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