The History of Hwy 20

The highway from Williams Lake to Bella Coola has more stories than road. Here is a story about how Hodgson Freightways began and where it is today.

Tommy Hodgson first arrived in the Cariboo in 1912. He started making weekly runs delivering the mail. Leaving Williams Lake making his way through to various places such as Riske Creek and Redstone. He later acquired a contract to deliver mail to Tatla Lake and Kleena Kleene as well.

In 1915 he bought a passenger Cadillac. Tom was known to haul anything from groceries to mail and even offered his services to the locals for rides. Back then it would take two days to go from Williams Lake to Anahim Lake, which is as far as the road went.

In the winter he would use a team of horses and a sleigh to make his weekly trek across the Chilcotin. Back then, the name Hwy 20 did not exist. The road was called the Chilcotin road, although parts of the road could hardly be called a road. Winters can be bitter cold with lots of snow fall and no plowing was done to the road until the 1930’s.

The province felt that the terrain too difficult and refused to extend it and left Bella Coola inaccessible by road. By 1953 the locals got together and with one bulldozer at one end of the 85 mile stretch and another bulldozer at the other end of what was known as “Freedom Road” was completed when the two bulldozers met up with each other, finally the local volunteers made Bella Coola accessible by road.

As the years past and Hodgson’s acquired Trucks to haul freight and mail across the Chilcotin, on the less than forgiving roads. Three sons of Tommy took over when he retired and renamed the Chilcotin Mail to the Hodgson Brothers and carried on trucking for another 30 years.

In 1962 although sad to see it go the Brothers sold the company. Ron and Flo Evans bought the business and carried on with the freight service.

The business continued to thrive through the years and expanded into Bella Coola. The road is now known as Hwy 20.  Over the years, the Hwy, between Williams Lake to Anahim Lake had been paved and or seal coated, although today it can still be quite a rough ride. The gravel road begins at Anahim Lake to the bottom of the Heckman Hill leading into Hagensborg and Bella Coola.  The road is still considered quite dangerous from the top of the Heckman pass (Elev 5085 ft) and starts to descend for approximately 12 miles, into winding narrow gravel road with sections of 18% grades, sharp hairpin turns and a few jaw dropping switchbacks. There are no guardrails for protection and no cell service for help. Once at the bottom of the Heckman pass you are in the Bella Coola Valley. From here the road is paved into Bella Coola.

In 1998 the Evans sold the business to Mike Frketich. Mike still owns and operates Hodgson Freightways today. The business operates out of Surrey BC where their head office is located.

At Hodgson Freightways we take pride in keeping a high standard of service for these remote communities. We provide LTL and Truckload service to the Bella Coola Valley departing the lower mainland Monday and Thursday arriving Tuesday’s and Friday’s.

Although there have been some improvements over the years, the road remains much the same as when it was originally built in 1953.