through the communities of Glen Walter and Summerstown. At Lancaster—the final notable community along Highway2—the route met Highway 34, and shortly thereafter crossed into Quebec. Current routes Despite being decommissioned as a provincial highway in the 1990s, almost the entirety of the former highway remains driveable, and is now maintained by the various counties, regions, and cities through which it passes. The various sections have the following designations, from west to east: History Highway 2 was the first roadway assumed under the maintenance of the Department of Public Highways (today's Ministry of Transportation of Ontario). The section from the Rouge River to Smith's Creek, now Port Hope, was inaugurated on August 21, 1917, as The Provincial Highway. On June 7, 1918, the designation was extended east approximately to the Quebec border. Footpaths The forerunners to Highway 2 are numerous paths constructed during the colonization of Ontario. While some portions may have existed as trails created by Indigenous peoples for hundreds of years, the first recorded construction along what would become Highway 2 was in late October 1793, when Captain Smith and 100 Queen's Rangers returned from carving The Governor's Road through the thick forests between Dundas and the present location of Paris. John Graves Simcoe was given the task of defending Upper Canada (present day Ontario) from the United States following the American Revolution and with opening the territory to settlement. After establishing a "temporary" capital at York (present day Toronto), Simcoe ordered an inland route constructed between Cootes Paradise at the tip of Lake Ontario and his proposed capital of London. By the spring of 1794, the road was extended as far as La Tranche, now the Thames River, in London. In 1795, the path was connected with York. Asa Danforth Jr., recently immigrated from the United States, was awarded the task, for which he would be compensated $90 per mile. Beginning on June 5, 1799, the road was extended eastwards. Danforth was hired once more, and tasked with clearing a road east from York through the bush, with (preferably in the centre) cut to the ground. It was carved as far as Port Hope by December, and to the Trent River soon after. Danforth's inspector and acting surveyor general William Chewett declared the road "good" for use in the dead of winter, but "impassible" during the wet summers, when the path turned to a bottomless mud pit. He