Recently the county road commission brought in some big equipment and began installing an additional storm sewer and catch-basins a little way up our street. Two days later the sudden arrival of warmer weather melting the winter snows and bringing a heavy run-off of water threatened to flood our street -an occasional occurrence in spring. The threat ofstreet flooding prompted me to check the older catch-basins in the street beside our lot to make sure that they were open. While I was probing in the murky water with a shovel trying to locate the opening a neighbor across the way arrived and in answer to my remarks about the flooding made a few observations about the usual inefficiencies of government. Although I was inclined to agree with him regarding the frailties of government, I continued probing for the old catch–basin. Eventually my search produced a small whirl–pool in the muddy water and a little more clearing away of some old leaves brought an increasing flow of water that, to my surprise, in another five or ten minutes had all but cleared the flooding street.

The incident recalled a story told in the Northwest Travelguide about Bella Coola, a remote settlement on the mountainous coast of British Columbia about half-way between Vancouver and Prince Rupert. The settlers, many of them from Scandinavia, tired of their isolation except by ship or air from the rest of the country, had long been seeking a road connection with the interior. “For decades government after government said that the link wasn’t practical. In the 1930’s they even spent $35,000 on a survey to prove that a road from the valley would cost millions of dollars and be a major undertaking. Then in 1952 Bella Coola residents decided to build the road themselves. With a total population of 1,200, counting men, women, and children, they set out to build a road 10 miles up a mountain and 25 miles through a muskeg and jackpine wilderness. And, fantastic as it may sound, in little over a year they had the rough construction completed and the new link christened appropriately ‘The Freedom Road’.

“In commenting on the feat, Honorable P. A. Gaglardi, Minister of Highways for B.C., said it was ‘a daring undertaking, an amazing completion which has aroused the admiration of the entire Province . . . .’”

This story becomes more fascinating when we consider that remote Bella Coola was the place where Alexander MacKenzie reached the coast in 1793. Setting out from the interior beyond the mountains, he and 9 others paddled up the Peace River to become the first men to cross the continent North of Mexico. That incredible feat, a round-trip which took, as I recall, 110 days, is described in his diary published some time ago under the title First Man West.* This too was not a government but a fur company’s project.

*Edited by Walter Sheppe, published by Greenwood, Brooklyn, N.Y.