In 2004 CBC surveyed Canadians on who is the greatest Canadian. The top forty vote getters were finally whittled down to one—Tommy Douglas. With due respect to Tommy Douglas he was not the greatest Canadian. Universal healthcare is an important milestone in the progression of our country. But before you take care of Canadians you first have to create a country. Creating that sense of united community across such a massive country was immeasurably advanced with the creation of the Trans-Canada Highway. As such for me the greatest Canadian is Dr. Perry Doolittle, the spiritual father of the TransCanada Highway.
Needless to say Dr. Doolittle did not crack the top forty of CBC’s show. He was beat out by such nominees as Jim Carrey, Avril Lavinge and Celine Dion. Dr. Doolittle is one of those characters that have been relegated to a footnote in history. He shouldn’t be because his impact on this country was profound.
I myself would never have learned about Dr. Doolittle except that on our drive across Canada we stopped for a bathroom break at a roadside historical marker. This humble rest stop in the middle of the country marked the middle of the TransCanada Highway. There stands a small crumbling plinth carved with his name.
Turns out that we were not the first cannonballers in Canadian history. In 1925 Dr. Doolittle embarked on one of the great automobile adventures in history. He left Halifax in a Model T Ford to drive across Canada finally ending in Vancouver. He made his way across Canada through a patchwork of country roads – a far cry from the modern national highway we used for our cross-country run last month. He covered 800 kms with railway wheels fitted to his car because there were no roads for certain sections. 7,715 kms were covered in 38 days. Needless to say he became a Canadian folk hero.
The Model T that Dr. Doolittle drove from Halifax to Vancouver in 1925.
Dr. Doolittle was one of the earliest advocates for the automobile and he made this trip to advocate for a national highway. He saw the transformational potential of cars and worked hard to overcome people’s apprehension about cars. With the ubiquitous car nowadays we forget that people were slow to adopt cars. Many thought that this loud machine would negatively disrupt life and upset farm animals. When an eight miles per hour speed limit was proposed, Dr. Doolittle took legislators on a ride in his car to show them that his desired speed limit of ten miles an hour was not “scorching”.
He was the first to buy a used car, a one-cylinder Winton. He was the first doctor to make his rounds in a car. Even then he understood that the foundation of a community and country are the physical roads we build. They are the manifestation of our connections to each other. And he thought that the best way to see this country of ours was from behind the steering wheel.
He died in 1933, but his dream was realized with work starting on the TransCanada Highway in 1950. It opened in 1962 even though 3,000 kms remained unpaved before finally being completed in 1971.
This national road and engineering marvel, the TransCanada Highway, is the underlying base of our country. It allowed so many Canadians for the first time to easily travel this vast land. It allowed us to meet each other and to see for ourselves this beautiful country. The TransCanada Highway is a local road for Medicine Hat. I use it often as a part of my daily life. Little do I think that this road stretches for 6,000 kms from ocean to ocean. So the next time you’re on the TransCanada Highway think about Dr. Perry Doolittle. This was his vision.
Medicine Hat News. August 27, 2016.