Highway 638 (Ontario)
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Highway 638 is among northern Ontario's most scenic secondary highways. This highway has many sharp curves and, in one section of the highway, people who drive semi trucks have to downshift. The highway measures 54 km in length.
The highway's northwestern terminus is at Highway 17 in Echo Bay. It runs east through Sylvan Valley, Leeburn and Ophir, where it turns southward. It runs south through Rydal Bank, Bruce Station, and finally to its southeastern terminus, also at Highway 17, in the town of Bruce Mines.
The highway's northwestern terminus is under dispute as of October 31, 2007, when the new four-lane bypass section of Highway 17 opened. The plan was to rebadge the old highway 17 alignment through Garden River to Echo Bay as Highway 638, with the portion from Echo Bay to the previous end of the four-lane being labelled Highway 638A. However, the Garden River First Nation, citing a 1909 agreement with the province whereby ownership of the highway reverts to the band after realignment, has refused to accept the highway being badged as anything other than Highway 17B. To that end, the band has posted unofficial "Highway 17B" signs at the eastern and western limits of the reserve. The provincial Ministry of Transportation, however, has decommissioned all B-suffixed highways in Ontario and no longer applies that designation to any roadway in the province.
[edit] External links
- Ontario Highways 636-673
- Northern Ontario Road Maps, Map 12: Wawa, Timmins, Kirkland Lake, New Liskeard, North Bay, Sudbury, Elliot Lake, Sault Ste. Marie
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