On the east side of Highway 2, at 55th Avenue is a little park which contains the Mile 0 Marker, an old caboose, several other artefacts, the Visitor Centre and this sign, which relates the history of the Mackenzie Highway.
Mackenzie Highway
The origins of the Mackenzie Highway date back to 1914 and the Battle River Trail.
Resource discoveries in the Northwest Territories in the 1930s led to the surveying of a cat train route from Grimshaw to Yellowknife in the winter of 1938-39. The first cat train arrived in Yellowknife April 12, 1939. On November 3, 1945, the Federal and Alberta Governments signed an agreement to build an all weather highway from Grimshaw to Hay River. The news was welcomed in Grimshaw, where civic leaders had long lobbied to be "Mile Zero" on the highway.
Completed by 1950, the highway was named by the Council of the Northwest Territories, which chose the name Mackenzie Highway in January 1949 to recognize the rich Mackenzie District which the highway would serve. The highway, like the District and the River of the same name, honours the explorations in the late 1700s by the famous explorer, Alexander Mackenzie. Today, the Mackenzie Highway remains a vital transportation route to Canada's north.