You asked for this one and we are happy to deliver it. Step back in time with us as we travel BC Highway 1 from Lytton to Revelstoke, circa 1966. This super cool, historical photolog video captures one of the most important transportation routes in BC – the Trans-Canada Highway. It’s the primary east-west route through the province, a big part of our Pacific Gateway program and a vital link between British Columbia and the rest of Canada.
We recorded these nostalgic videos from 16mm film footage taken in 1966. The original photologs were collected by rigging a camera onto the dash of a car that took still images every 80 feet or so and then running them all together as a single film. As far as we know, the “Highways Department” (as it was then known) was the first organization in Canada to collect information this way in order to create a visual record of road condition information from across the province, thereby allowing our engineers to study a stretch of road without having to travel there. Pretty cool, eh?
Notice some changes along the route today? That’s because we’ve been busy improving the highway as a part of our BC Highway 1 Four-Laning Program. 10.5 kilometres of the highway between Monte Creek and Hoffman’s Bluff have recently been widened to four lanes and the construction through Hoffman’s Bluff continues. Construction will be completed by early fall on the Malakwa Bridge project, east of Sicamous, which involves widening a 2.7 km section of the Trans-Canada Highway to four lanes and replacing the two-lane Malakwa Bridge with a four lane structure.
If you’ve been riding along with us, you’ll know we’ve toured the southern stretch of BC Highway 97, from the U.S. Border to Vernon, as well as the northern portion of 97 between Prince George to Dawson Creek and Highway 3A between Nelson and Balfour as it was in 1966. We have also driven over Vancouver Island’s Malahat Highway and along Highway 1 and the original Port Mann Bridge in our BC Road Trip Time Machine travels. Our most recent time machine trip took us from Hope to Lytton and we now are picking up here where we left off.
For those BC Road Trip Time Machine keeners out there, you might notice our the date stamp change suddenly on this reel. We can’t say for sure, but it looks like the time machine dashboard cam might have run into some technical difficulties somewhere between Sicamous and Revelstoke. Despite the glitch, it’s a great ride and we hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for more episodes in your special corner of the province as we work our way through the rest of the 1966 photolog footage.
Do you have any questions about this, or any other work we do? Let us know in the comments below or connect with us on Twitter or Facebook. Happy time travels!
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