CBC Archives

Provide students with the download sheet Atlantic to Pacific. Have the students work in small groups to complete the sheet, which includes the following activities:

1. Brainstorm all the words you can think of when you consider the word “highway.”
2. Brainstorm all the words you can think of when you consider the phrase “connecting Canada.”
3. Name three or four reasons why you think Canada needed an interconnected highway extending from one coast to the other.

Direct students to the topic Trans-Canada Highway: Bridging the Distance on the CBC Radio and Television Archives Web site. Allow them time to browse the site, noting any information they’d like to add to the completed download sheet from Before Exploring. Using their notes, students will write a letter to the editor of a national newspaper expressing their views on the need for a cross-Canada highway. The letter should be dated prior to December 10, 1949, when the Trans-Canada Highway Act was passed.

Have students peer-edit one another’s work before they edit their work for final publication. Invite volunteers to read their letter to the class and list all the reasons a cross-Canada highway was so important to Canadians.

Students can write a song or poem about the need to bring Canada together through a highway system.