1, 1937, the DND was absorbed into the Department of Highways, and the road west of Pembroke became an extension of Highway 17. At this point, the highway from Sault Ste. Marie to the Quebec boundary was long. Portions were paved at this point: east of Sault Ste. Marie, west of Blind River, through Sudbury, east of Sturgeon Falls, through Mattawa, and from Chalk River to Quebec; the remainder was a gravel road. The highway between the Manitoba boundary and Nipigon was , mostly gravel-surfaced. The only significant exceptions were in the Kenora and Thunder Bay areas. Before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, a new bridge spanning the Nipigon River was completed alongside a highway eastward to Schreiber. Both were opened together ceremoniously on September 24, 1937. When the war began, construction on Highway 17 halted, with effort instead focused on the simpler northern route via Geraldton and Hearst. The Gap Following the war, construction on the missing segment of Highway 17 between Schreiber and Sault Ste. Marie proceeded slowly; the completion of Highway 11 between Nipigon and Hearst already provided a road between the east and west. However, in 1949 the federal government signed the Trans-Canada Highway Act, which provided up to a 90% subsidy to provinces to complete their portion of the highway to the required standards. Two portions of Ontario's route were eligible for this subsidy: Highway 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury, and Highway 17 along the north shore of Lake Superior. Amongst some of the most difficult terrain encountered in Canada, engineers blasted 2,087,234 cubic metres (2,730,000 cubic yards) of rock, removed 5,982,641 cubic metres (7,825,000 cubic yards) of earth, and cleared of forest in order to bridge the of wilderness known as "the Gap". The Gap was completed and opened to traffic on September 17, 1960, uniting the two segments and completing the route of Highway 17 from the Manitoba border to the Quebec border. The Queensway During the 1950s, the Greber Plan called for the creation of numerous parkways and divided highways through the growing city of Ottawa. One of these, known as The Queensway, was a grade-separated freeway that would bypass the urban alignment of Highway 17. The Greber Plan was produced by Jacques Gréber under the direction of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in the late 1940s. Although Gréber had been corresponding with King as early as