R.G. "Bob" Harvey, born in Scotland in 1922, received his civil engineering degree from the University of Glasgow in 1943. Joining the British Army, he served in the U.K., Burma and India. He emigrated to Canada in 1948, joined the provincial Public Works department and married Eva Huscroft in 1950. He was the district engineer at Nelson from 1950 to 1954, then worked in a similar job in Nanaimo. He became Regional Maintenance Engineer at New Westminster responsible for all provincial roads in Skeena, Prince Rupert and Atlin districts, as well as Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. He became Regional Highway Engineer at Prince George in 1958. He moved to Victoria in 1967 and became Deputy Minister of Highways and Public Works in 1976. He retired in 1983. The final installment of his Carving the Western Path series, subtitled Routes to Remember, recalls roads built through the Okanagan Valley and alongside Kootenay Lake, interior ferries and the Crows Nest Railway. He died in a Victoria hospice on July 7, 2014 at age 93.

BOOKS:

The Coast Connections: A History of the Building of Trails and Roads Between British Columbia's Interior and its Lower Mainland (Oolichan Books, 1994; republished by Heritage House)

Carving the Western Path, By River, Rail and Road through B.C.'s Southern Mountains (Heritage House, 1998)

Carving the Western Path by River, Rail and Road through Central and Northern B.C. (Heritage House, 1999)

Head On! Collisions of Egos, Ethics and Politics in B.C.'s Transportation History (Heritage House, 2004)

Carving the Western Path: Routes to Remember (Heritage House, 2006)

[BCBW 2006] "Transportation"