Alaska Highway
The Alaska Highway is a highway in North America which was constructed during World War II to connect the contiguous United States with Alaska through Canada. It begins at the junction with a few Canadian highways in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and runs to Delta Junction, Alaska, via Whitehorse, Yukon. When it was completed in 1942, it was about long, but in 2012, it was only. This is due to the realignments of the highway over the years, which has rerouted and straightened many sections. The highway opened to the public in 1948. Once legendary for being a rough, challenging drive, the highway is now paved over its entire length. Its component highways are British Columbia Highway 97, Yukon Highway 1, and Alaska Route 2.
An informal system of historic mileposts developed over the years to denote major stopping points. Delta Junction, at the end of the highway, makes reference to its location at "Historic Milepost 1422". It is at this point that the Alaska Highway meets the Richardson Highway, which continues to the city of Fairbanks. This is often regarded, though unofficially, as the northwestern portion of the Alaska Highway, with Fairbanks at Historic Milepost 1520. Mileposts on this stretch of highway are measured from the port of Valdez on Prince William Sound, rather than the Alaska Highway. The Alaska Highway is popularly considered part of the Pan-American Highway, which extends south to Argentina.
History
Proposal
Proposals for a highway to Alaska originated in the 1920s. Thomas MacDonald, director of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, dreamed of an international highway spanning the United States and Canada. In order to promote the highway, in 1933 Slim Williams originally traveled the proposed route by dogsled. Since much of the route would pass through Canada, support from the Canadian government was crucial. However, the Canadian government perceived no value in putting up the required funds to build the road, since the only part of Canada that would benefit was not more than a few thousand people in Yukon.In 1929, the British Columbia government proposed a highway to Alaska to encourage economic development and tourism. American President Herbert Hoover appointed a board with American and three Canadian members to evaluate the idea. Its 1931 report supported the idea for economic reasons, but both American and Canadian members recognized that a highway would benefit the American military in Alaska. In 1933, the joint commission proposed the U.S. government contribute $2 million of the capital cost, with the $12 million balance borne by the Canadian and BC governments. The Great Depression and the Canadian government's lack of support caused the project to not proceed.
When the United States approached Canada again in February 1936, the Canadian government refused to commit to spending money on a road connecting the United States. The Canadians also worried about the military implications, fearing that in a war between Japan and the United States, the US military use of the road would breach Canadian neutrality. During a June 1936 visit to Canada, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Prime Minister W. L. M. King that a highway to Alaska through Canada could be important in quickly reinforcing the American territory during a foreign crisis. Roosevelt became the first American to publicly discuss the military benefits of a highway in an August speech in Chautauqua, New York. He again mentioned the idea during King's visit to Washington in March 1937, suggesting that a $30 million highway would be helpful as part of a larger defense against Japan that would include, the Americans hoped, a larger Canadian military presence on the Pacific coast. Roosevelt remained a supporter of the highway, telling Cordell Hull in August 1937 that he wanted a road built as soon as possible. By 1938, Duff Pattullo, the BC premier, favored a route through Prince George. The U.S. offered either a $15 million interest-free loan, or to cover half the construction costs.
The December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and beginning of the Pacific Theater in World War II, coupled with Japanese threats to the west coast of North America and the Aleutian Islands, changed the priorities for both nations. On February 6, 1942, the construction of the Alaska Highway was approved by the United States Army and the project received the authorization from the U.S. Congress and Roosevelt to proceed five days later. The Northwest Service Command was created in September 1942. It was responsible for the construction and maintenance of the Alaska Highway, the operation of the railway between Skagway, Alaska, and Whitehorse, and the Canol Project. Canada agreed to allow construction as long as the United States bore the full cost, and that the road and other facilities in Canada be turned over to Canadian authority after the war ended. It proved unimportant for the military because 99 percent of the supplies to Alaska during the war were sent by sea from San Francisco, Seattle, and Prince Rupert.
Routing
The Americans preferred Route A which, starting at Prince George, went northwest toHazelton, along the Stikine River, by
Atlin, Teslin and Tagish Lakes, and from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Fairbanks, Alaska, via the Tanana Valley. However, the route was vulnerable to possible enemy attack from the sea, experienced steep grades and heavy snowfall, and had no airbases along the way.
The Canadians favored Route B. This also started at Prince George, but followed the Rocky Mountain Trench up the valleys of the Parsnip and Finlay Rivers to Finlay Forks and Sifton Pass, then north to Frances Lake and the Pelly River in the Yukon. From there it went to Dawson City and down the Yukon Valley to connect the Richardson Highway to Fairbanks. The advantages of this inland route was the safe distance from enemy planes, and shorter with lower elevations enabling lower construction and maintenance costs. The disadvantages were the bypassing of respective airbases, and Whitehorse, the principal town in the Yukon. Optional variations in the southern portion of this route were via Vanderhoof to the west or Monkman Pass to the east.
Route C, the Prairie option, advocated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, was the only practical one. It was far enough inland from enemy planes and it linked the airfields of the Northwest Staging Route that conveyed lend-lease aircraft from the United States to the Soviet Union. This option encountered more level terrain, not ascending a pass over. There was also a railhead at Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and a winter trail from there to
Fort Nelson, to the northwest. It followed the Rocky Mountain Trench toward Dawson City before turning west to Fairbanks.
Construction
The road was originally built mostly by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a supply route during World War II. In 1942, the Army Corps of Engineers assigned more than 10,000 men, about a third of whom were black soldiers, members of three newly formed African-American segregated regiments. There were four main thrusts in building the route: southeast from Delta Junction, Alaska, toward a linkup at Beaver Creek, Yukon; north then west from Dawson Creek ; both east and west from Whitehorse after being ferried in via the White Pass and Yukon Route railway. The Army commandeered equipment of all kinds, including local riverboats, railway locomotives, and housing originally meant for use in southern California.The official start of construction took place on March 9, 1942, after hundreds of pieces of construction equipment were moved on priority trains by the Northern Alberta Railways to the northeastern part of British Columbia near Mile 0 at Dawson Creek. Construction accelerated through the spring as the winter weather faded away and crews were able to work from both the northern and southern ends; they were spurred on after reports of the Japanese invasion of Kiska Island and Attu Island in the Aleutians. During construction the road was nicknamed the "oil can highway" by the work crews due to the large number of discarded oil cans and fuel drums that marked the road's progress. The construction crew had also passed through an Indigenous village known as Champagne which they used to set up camp. Unfortunately, disease spread and nearly wiped out the indigenous population of the village. After the war, the survivors left the village to find work, leaving the location a ghost town.
On September 24, 1942, crews from both directions met at Mile 588 at what became named Contact Creek, at the British Columbia-Yukon border at the 60th parallel; the entire route was completed October 28, 1942, with the northern linkup at Mile 1202, Beaver Creek, and the highway was dedicated on November 20, 1942, at Soldier's Summit.
Although it was completed on October 28, 1942, and its completion was celebrated at Soldier's Summit on November 21, the "highway" was not usable by general vehicles until 1943. Even then there were many steep grades, a poor surface, switchbacks to gain and descend hills, and few guardrails. Bridges, which progressed during 1942 from pontoon bridges to temporary log bridges, were replaced with steel bridges where necessary.
A replica log bridge, the Canyon Creek bridge, can be seen at the Aishihik River crossing; the bridge was rebuilt in 1987 and refurbished in 2005 by the Yukon government where it functions as a popular tourist attraction. The easing of the Japanese invasion threat resulted in no more contracts being given to private contractors for upgrading of specific sections.
Some of route between Burwash Landing and Koidern, Yukon, became nearly impassable in May and June 1943 due to permafrost thawing under the road and destroying the layer of delicate vegetation that held the road together. A corduroy road was built to restore the route, and corduroy still underlies old sections of highway in the area. Modern construction methods do not allow the permafrost to thaw, either by building a gravel berm on top or replacing the vegetation and soil immediately with gravel. The Burwash-Koidern section, however, is still a problem as the new highway built there in the late 1990s continues to experience frost heave.
Pincers on Japan and Look to the North, both 1944 productions, were National Film Board of Canada documentaries that depicted the construction of the Alaska Highway.