As early as 1906 the government was interested in opening a road from Athabasca Landing to Mirror Landing, later to become Smith. There were opposing views on whether this road should run on the north or south side of the Athabasca River.
William Harcus had been carrying mail for 4 years between Athabasca & Peace River. He wrote a letter of support for the north side (Peace River Trail). At the time of his letter he was traveling on the south side and it had taken him 3 days to make the trip. In addition, he had to leave part of the mail behind as he could not take it with trail conditions as they were. He said the north side was high & dry compared to the southern route.
A month prior to this Mr. Revillon of Revillon Brothers and Mr. Major of Baptiste Lake had traveled the southern trail between Moose Portage & Baptiste Lake. They felt this was the better route as it only took 10 hours with pack horses to make the entire trip.
In the end the government hired surveyors to cut a trail on the south side. This trail was 56 miles long. It started at Athabasca and ran to the new ferry crossing at Mirror Landing. This crossing was about 300 yards down stream from the old ferry crossing and would have been just to the west side of the river bridge.
Around 1930-31 a highway was made along this route but there as no graveling done until the Alcan Highway work was in progress.
The gravel road which is now known as Ranch Road is the Old Athabasca Highway. In 1948 when Highway 44 was built as an alternative route to Slave Lake this paved section from the SE end of Ranch Road to Highway 44 was built.