[vid]

They were called trunk roads, not truck roads, and the roads that trailed off of them were branch roads. They were never numbered, they were named. Some names, like Dawson Road (Ontario 102 and 17 and Manitoba 207) and The Devon Road (Highway 593) are still in use today. Both routes pre-date the highway system. 11/17 from Thunder Bay to Nipigon was The Nipigon Highway before 1937, and from there to Marathon was The Marathon Highway. Thunder Bay wasn't connected to Ontario by road until the late 1930s when Highway 11 was connected to the Nipigon Highway, and shortly after the Nipigon Highway from Marathon to Manitoba was called Highway 17.

They usually named trunk roads after the person who created them. Dawson Road was named after Simon James Dawson who surveyed it, Scott Highway (Highway 61 between Thunder Bay and the US) was named after a lumberjack who pioneered the area, the Furgeson Road in Northeastern Ontario was named after a premier. In other cases, Devon Road was named after the township is was located in, Highway 131 was originally called Oliver Road and then became that again when the province removed the designation, it connected Port Arthur to the township of Oliver. The various *town name* Highways were simply named after what was at the end of them. We still typically refer to them like that, since most of our highways end at something. Everyone knows where the Armstrong Highway is but few people know that it's numbered 527. Highway 589 is Dog Lake Road because it goes to Dog Lake, but few people know the number it has (or that it's even a highway) unless they travel it and see the signs.

Another concept we had up here was Colonization Roads or Government Roads, roads built by the government to open land. A lot of those still have the name Colonization or Government. They were never numbered and rarely made highways.