Long before Terry Fox, a young man named Hank Gallant dipped his toe into the Pacific Ocean, then turned east and started walking down the Trans-Canada Highway.
It was 1967, and he wanted to walk the length of that highway, to the Pacific Ocean, as a way of celebrating Canada's centennial.
After nine blizzards and 280 days of walking, he made it, and dipped his toe into the Atlantic.
"It proves to the outside world that Canadians themselves are doing something about centennial, not only governments, with their libraries and statues," he told a reporter along the way.
Historian Craig Baird, in this excerpt from his new book 'Canada’s Main Street: The Epic Story of the Trans-Canada Highway' writes: "The highway changed how Canadians travel, and how they experience the country and its scattered communities.
"There may have been ferries or railways or rudimentary roads and trails that crossed these same parts before the Trans-Canada," he adds, "but it brought the whole of Canada within reach of anyone with a vehicle or a bus ticket. It gave people the freedom to go where they wanted. They were no longer bound by a single track between towns. They could branch off and explore."
The building of the Canadian Pacific Railway is more storied, with songs sung, films made, books written. But Baird tells us the Trans-Canada deserves its place in our national story.
"I have always been fascinated with every aspect of the Trans-Canada, from the pioneers who drove across the country along the highway’s route (or parts of it) before it was built to its crucial role as the main economic and cultural artery of our nation today," he writes.
"This is the story of the highway that changed Canada forever."
Read the story here
