Once upon a time, before I was born, there were no roads in, well, in North America. When I was little there were lots of roads, but there were no roads between Alberta and British Columbia. At least none that were open in the winter.
If one wished to travel between Canada's two most Western provinces, in the winter, one had to drop South into the U. S. of A. and then pop back up North.
Today there are four highways, between the two provinces, that pass through the Rocky Mountains and are usable year round. In the North we have the Hart Highway that uses the Pine Pass. In the South we have Highway 3 that uses the Crowsnest Pass. In the center of the provinces we have highway 16, commonly, and mistakenly, called the Yellowhead Highway, running through Mt. Robson Provincial Park and Jasper National Park. And, of course, we have the Trans Canada Highway which uses the Roger's Pass.
I can recall, as a youngster, traveling between the cities of Golden and Revelstoke, over what was know as the Big Bend Highway. Basically the Big Bend was a logging road that followed the Columbia River which made a big bend as it flowed North and then curved South. This was an arduous trip of some eight hours, only an hour and half today with modern vehicles on the Roger's Pass which follows the Illecillewaet River.
The road wasn't paved, in most places it wasn't even graveled. In many places it was corduroy road. Corduroy road is road over a wet area that is filled in with logs laid, side by side, across the roadway.
Midway, along the Big Bend was a work camp knows as Boat Encampment. One of the workers, Peter Fuoco, who stayed at the camp, with a two bladed axe, and chisels, in his spare time, made a head out of a section of tree and then with some hand carved board, made a hat for the head.
He called his artwork `Wooden Head'. He placed his masterpiece beside the road and made a sign telling people, `Don't be a woodenhead - slow down'.
When the highway was replaced by the Roger's Pass in 1962, most of the Big Bend highway is now underwater as the valley has been dammed up for a hydro project, the government moved the Woodenhead to the intersection of the Big Bend Highway and the Trans Canada Highway, just East of the city of Revelstoke.
Sometime later Woodenhead was moved into the city of Revelstoke.
In 2005 Woodenhead was restored and placed in a gazebo like cage by the city of Revelstoke. It is hard to tell whether it is the original Woodenhead, covered in plastic, to preserve it, or if it has been totally rebuilt out of fiberglass.
It is easy to tell, at a glance that it isn't wood but it still reminds us old timers of its former glory, when it sat among the trees it was made of, near Boat Encampment.
