Baymouth to the Highway542 junction has the least traffic on a given day, with an average of 610vehicles passing as measured in 2010. Highway 6 continues north, passing through communities such as Manitowaning, Sheguiandah, and Little Current. At Little Current, Highway6 crosses the North Channel by the Little Current Swing Bridge, which swings open for 15minutes of each daylight hour in the summer to allow boats to pass through the channel. As of 2021, studies by the MTO have proposed replacing the aging structure with a two-lane crossing. After crossing the North Channel, Highway 6 climbs through the La Cloche Mountains near Whitefish Falls. Eventually, it arrives in Baldwin, north of Espanola, ending at Highway 17 in the community of McKerrow, from South Baymouth. History Wagon trails Prior to the establishment of Ontario's provincial highway network in 1920, the route that would become Highway 6 was composed of several early wagon trails created during the early settlement of what was then known as Upper Canada. These trails carved through an otherwise barren wilderness, connecting distant townsites: the Hamilton–Dover Plank Road between Port Dover and Hamilton, the Brock Road between Hamilton and Guelph, and the Garafraxa Road between Guelph and Sydenham (renamed to Owen Sound in 1851) — were opened in the 1830s and 1840s. Further north, the Southwest Diagonal and the Centre Road were built through the Bruce Peninsula in the 1840s and 1920s, respectively. In 1837, Charles Rankin was hired by the Canada Company to survey a line between Guelph and a new town site on the southern shore of Georgian Bay known as Sydenham. The Canada Company was formed by several British investors to purchase, open, and settle the Huron Tract, a vast wilderness stretching from Guelph north to Georgian Bay and west to Lake Huron. Rankin's line crossed too many natural obstacles, a result of the tendency to build roads that were straight rather than following the natural topography. Consequently, a new line was surveyed in 1840 by the company's own surveyor, John McDonald, and construction along this new route began. Around the same time, the Van Norman Company constructed a plank road between Port Dover and Hamilton known as both the Hamilton Plank Road and the Dover Road. By 1848, the Garafraxa Road between Guelph and Sydenham was completed. The remaining section between Hamilton and Guelph, known as the Brock Road, was constructed between 1848 and