page_title: Ontario Highway 68
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ontario Highway 68 / History
caption_attribution_description: Little Current Swing Bridge, Ontario, Canada
context_page_description: King's Highway 68, commonly referred to as Highway 68, was a provincially maintained highway on Manitoulin Island, linking the island to the mainland. It was connected to the rest of the network at McKerrow, where it met Highway 17. The road was built in the 1920s as a trunk road for the Department of Northern Development, but was assumed as a provincial highway in 1937, as the only King's Highway on the island. Highway 68 stretched from South Baymouth in the south, through the towns of Manitowaning and Little Current north to Espanola on the mainland.
  The entire route was later redesignated as an extension of Highway 6 in 1980. It remains part of the provincial highway system under its new designation.
context_section_description: The history of Highway 68 dates to 1929, when the Department of Northern Development (DND) constructed a 56 km (35 mi) gravel road between McKerrow and Goat Island. From there, a railway and ferry crossed the North Channel to Little Current on Manitoulin Island. On April 1, 1937, the DND merged into the Department of Highways (DHO), and the latter began to assume and number trunk roadways in central and northern Ontario. On August 11, 1937, the DHO took control of the Little Current Road.
  At its northern terminus, Highway 17 was rerouted in 1939, bypassing the old alignment between Webbwood and McKerrow. As a result, Highway 68 was extended north by 2 km (1.2 mi) to meet this new alignment.
  During World War II, the rail bridge over the North Channel was abandoned, and subsequently redecked for highway use in 1945. Highway 68 was extended across the channel to Little Current, increasing its length by 1 km (0.62 mi). However, Manitoulin Island would still remain without a highway of its own until the mid-1950s. On December 7, 1955, the route was extended 41.5 mi (66.8 km) across the island to South Baymouth.
  While the road was re-aligned somewhat throughout its history (many of the re-alignments took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s), and its overall path has not changed, its length has varied considerably during re-alignments, creeping as high as 130 km during the 1960s, before settling back down to its current value of around 116 km. Some former alignments (such as "Devil's Elbow Road") are still in use. The road was fully paved by 1973, making this road the second last Kings Highways in the province to be paved in its entirety (with the last being Highway 129).
  During the spring of 1980, the entire length of Highway 68 was renumbered as part of Highway 6.
  The two discontinuous sections of Highway 6 are linked only by a privately operated ferry, MS Chi-Cheemaun, which crosses Georgian Bay daily from May to October between South Baymouth and Tobermory.
caption: The Little Current Swing Bridge connects Manitoulin Island to the mainland.
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