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Northwest Corridor
Development Corporation .................................... Background by the Editor on the
need While I've lived in Vancouver, BC for many years, my media career began at the Edmonton Journal Daily Newspaper. The Northern Albertan people were superb, as was the training, the cooperative spirit and work ethic. My birthplace, Dawson City, Yukon, was farther north; close to the Arctic Circle in what poet Robert W. Service calls "The Land of the Midnight Sun." From there, I've journeyed on almost every type of conveyance; crossed the Yukon by pack horse, as part of a government survey crew, flown with bush pilots to remote lakes, worked two seasons on the Yukon sternwheeler SS Keno and rode the White Pass and Yukon Railway along the shoulders of the Sawtooth Range to Skagway, Alaska. The CPR "Princess" steamships took us from that historic port, down the Inside Passage via Juneau, Ketchikan, Prince Rupert and Alert Bay (near Port Hardy) to Vancouver and back several times.
Railways and Airports: A season at the CNR Railway's Edmonton freight yards, which also served the NAR Railway to Peace River Country, gave me a further appreciation for the strategic importance of a total inter modal transportation network. Likewise, I've witnessed the almost overnight transformation of the Northwest's airports and the communities they serve. A friend Leo McKinnon's personal stories of Grant MacConachie, Edmonton's famous aviator and airline pioneer, continue to serve as an inspiration for our Air Highways program. Living in the Yukon as a youngster
and later as a teen, I was fully aware of the precarious
position the North's economy was in, being dependent on
fickle world markets for minerals, and on heavy support from
federal funds. Cutting timber and working underground at
Keno Hill gave me a healthy appreciation for those key
resource areas. So, small wonder I'm a keen supporter of
The Northwest Corridor Development Corporation (NCDC)
and its worthy aims. The following is a brief official
description of the organization, which is holding its Annual
Conference in Smithers, BC, October 24-26 2001.
http://www.nwcorridor.com//conference.html We hope to see you there.
Years later in a documentary video for the Alaska Highway's 50th Anniversary, I elaborated on Grant's concept of a land bridge of Northern Airports: Edmonton, Dawson Creek, Fort Nelson, Whitehorse and others in what we now call the Air Highways Network. Speaking of our Asia Pacific connection, Grant MacConachie would have enjoyed the fellowship we experienced at the APEC Ministers Meeting, the 4th World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention and other recent events. We published a Special Apec Edition of Air Highways/ BC Scene for the benefit of 10,000 officials and media from 18 APEC economies who flew to Vancouver for that landmark event. Most arrived by the same air bridge Grant MacConachie spoke of so eloquently decades before.
NCDC Annual Conference, Smithers, BC, Oct. 24-26, 2001 The Northwest Corridor is one of Canada's leading economic regions. Spanning four western provinces with Pacific Port locations at Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Stewart and inbound and outbound NAFTA trade flowing through Winnipeg, the Corridor has a modern, uncongested and well-connected network of highways, railways, airports and marine port facilities. This network provides key connections to producer and consumer markets in North America, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa. |
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Adventure
Roads North: The
first time I drove the 