Construction on widening Kicking Horse Canyon stretch of Highway 1 nears completion

Major safety upgrades to the Kicking Horse Canyon section of Highway 1 east of Golden, B.C., are almost complete after years of closures and delays. 

The 21-kilometre stretch of highway has undergone major changes since work first began on upgrades in 2003. 

The fourth and final phase of the project has now widened the last two-lane section of the highway east of Golden, about 490 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, to four lanes.

The province held a news conference Thursday to announce that the $601-million fourth phase of the project — which was considered the most challenging, according to the project's website — is almost done, with traffic expected on the new, 4.8-kilometre section of highway by the start of December. 

"We've taken the twists and turns out of this section of roadway and made it tremendously safer for all of those who are travelling through here. [We've] made the highway more reliable," said Rob Fleming, B.C.'s Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. 

Safety a top priority, province says

Fleming added that the highway now has four new bridges, nine new viaducts and new paving, making it smoother and safer.

Mike Wilson, detachment commander for the Golden RCMP, agrees. 

"This highway is a conduit for the entire country to funnel through here … it's a lot safer for everybody that uses the highway," he said. 

The province explained in a news release that while there will be no more extended closures of the highway, there will be construction delays and night-time closures into November. 

But Fleming states the years-long project is a worthy investment. 

"$27 billion a year worth of trade moves through this corridor," he said.

"When there's a crash, when there's a slide, when there's some kind of disruption, a lot of economic activity is disrupted."

Large workforce to bring project to completion

Shuswap Band Elder Dean Martin opened Thursday's news conference with a story and a prayer.

He said his family has been talking about the twinning of the Kicking Horse Canyon for more than 30 years.

"What's happened today and what's going on [now] is just a great thing to see," he said. 

The Shuswap Band is a member of the Secwépemc Nation, whose traditional territory spans approximately 180,000 square kilometres over B.C. and Alberta. According to the the Shuswap Band, its primary community is located on its reserve near Invermere, about 100 kilometres south of Golden. 

"By keeping health and safety at the forefront, we understand that is so important … what we do together is really important," said Martin. 

Fleming explained that 84 per cent of the workforce on the project have been from B.C., with more than one third of the workers living within 100 kilometres of the job site.

"Nine per cent of workers on this job were women in trades — double the provincial average. Fourteen per cent of the workforce were Indigenous, which is also more than double the norm on projects like this," he said. 

He commended everyone for working in all kinds of conditions. 

"The seasons they had to work in — we had fires, we had wickedly hot summers, very early winters and very cold, long winters, and workers got through all of that and did very difficult work," said Fleming. 

The province says preparations are being made to transition traffic onto the new highway and bridges by the beginning of December. Final work on the project is expected to wrap up come spring 2024.