History of Tertiary Highway 802:
Tertiary Highway 802 is a local highway which serves as an access road from Highway 11 northerly to the community of Kashabowie in the Thunder Bay District.
Highway 802 also serves as an access road to the now-abandoned copper mining town of Burchell Lake. The access roads to both Burchell Lake and Kashabowie were first
designated as a provincial highway in the early 1960s. In August 1961, a Preliminary Assumption Plan was prepared which showed the planned assumption of the
Kashabowie Road and the Burchell Lake Road as a new Tertiary Highway. The two roads were assumed by the Department of Highways of Ontario (DHO) on April 19, 1962.
The route was formally designated as Tertiary Highway 802 by an Order-in-Council dated May 24, 1962. Once the Burchell Lake Townsite was abandoned in the late 1960s,
it was determined that a portion of Highway 802 was no longer required in the provincial highway system. The short section of Highway 802 lying west of the Burchell
Lake Townsite entrance was legally closed to traffic by Orders-in-Council passed in 1973 and 1974. At present, Highway 802 ends at the entrance to the abandoned
Burchell Lake Townsite.
As originally assumed, the route of Highway 802 extended both to the north and to the south of Highway 11, with the two junctions offset by a distance of 1.8 km.
Based on the official highway mileage of 13.7 km provided in MTO distance tables, the route of Highway 802 is supposed to run concurrently with Highway 11 between the
offset highway junctions. However, based on the highway signs currently in place, Highway 802 is not actually overlapped with Highway 11. In other words, the north
leg of Highway 802 to Kashabowie and the south leg of Highway 802 to Burchell Lake are signed as if they were two separate, independent highways. Highway 802 is paved
from Kashabowie to Highway 11, and again from the former Burchell Lake Townsite entrance northerly for about 4 km. The rest of the highway is gravel-surfaced.
Highway 802 is maintained year-round. Services are available at the Highway 11 Junction in Kashabowie.
After remaining little-changed for 50 years, a mysterious extension of Highway 802 appeared on the 2012 Official Ontario Road Map. The Lac Des Mille Lacs Road
leading south from Highway 17 in the Upsala area was marked on the 2012 Edition as a new section of Highway 802. It is believed that this "extension" was merely a
cartographic error, as the north leg of the highway from Highway 17 to Lac Des Mille Lacs was subsequently removed from the 2014 Edition. Furthermore, records on file
with the Ministry of Transportation do not indicate that the Lac Des Mille Lacs Road was ever designated as a portion of Highway 802.
| 
