angularjs - import html template in typescript

Question

I'm trying to import my html template so that webpack will recognize them and include them when I build. (webpack -d)

According to this GitHub issue I should do this

declare module '*.html' {
    const _: string;
    export default _;
}

Then import template from './myTemplate.html'; should work.

But it doesn't quite do the trick.

import template from './myTemplate.html';
console.log(template); // undefined

However this "works"

import * as template from './myTemplate.html';
console.log(template); // <p>Hello world!</p>

Very strange.

But now this doesn't work

$routeProvider.when("/test", {
    template: template, // ERROR! template is typeof(*.html) expected string
    controller: MyController,
    controllerAs: "$ctrl"
});

However if I change my *.html module to

declare module '*.html' {
    const _: string;
    export = _; // changed this
}

I can now do

import * as template from './myTemplate.html';

$routeProvider.when("/test", {
    template: template, // Great success!
    controller: MyController,
    controllerAs: "$ctrl"
});

It works, but why doesn't import template from './myTemplate.html'; work? What am I doing wrong as the others in the GitHub issue seemed to get it to work like that.