Word: roading
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Neither road is open yet to the casual motorist. Lawmakers are still debating the highways' economic and environmental impact. But the Dempster is slated for a formal ribbon-cutting in September, and, with some backstage horse trading, the Haul Road may not be too far behind. Then virtually anyone with a sturdy enough car, a firm hand on the wheel and a taste for the outdoors, arctic-style, can contemplate a splendidly eye-opening joyride to the far north...
Canada's Dempster Highway, named after a turn-of-the-century Mountie who made a heroic attempt to rescue a stranded patrol, was begun 22 years ago by the Canadian government to spur the economic development of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The road starts at Dawson, hub of the Klondike's 1890s gold rush, laces through the deep green forested valleys of the North Klondike and climbs the rugged Ogilvie Mountains, where it peels off in to rolling alpine meadows and the tundra beyond. At the 253.7-mile mark, a simple sign announces...
Except under the best of conditions, anyone traveling the $91 million highway will be roughing it. In winter, the road will be untenable without constant snow removal; in spring, it will be a morass of mud. Only in summer and fall will passage be relatively easy without four-wheel drive. Nor does the highway offer much in the way of roadside facilities. The Yukon government has established two maintenance posts at miles 41 and 123, and at mile 231 the privately owned Eagle Plains Hotel stands as a kind of halfway house. Other than two Indian villages, there...
Other environmental effects may be more subtle. One involves the numerous arctic streams that pass under both roads via culverts. These can speed up or slow down the water and disturb the salmon battling upstream each spring to spawn. Indeed, biologists say that there has already been a drop-off in the number of fish in streams intersecting the Haul Road. Gravel and dust can be another problem. Tossed onto the permafrost by car wheels, they cause the snow to melt early in the spring. Waterfowl then nest prematurely in these moist spots and lose their young to frost...
...caribou that has traditionally ranged north to south from the Arctic Ocean to the foothills of the Brooks Range. Since the coming of the pipeline, says Klein, cows with calves have shown a marked reluctance to pass under the raised stretches of the conduit and to cross the road itself. Migratory patterns also seem to have changed, and the herd may dwindle. In Canada, the size of a herd of more than 100,000 caribou may be reduced because of the Dempster Highway. Says Director Gordon Hartman of the Yukon game department: "We simply don't have enough information...