The Alaska Highway (called sensibly the Alcan Highway by our
military) connects Alaska with the lower 48 states. It was authorized in 1942 under war
pressures and was completed, after a fashion, in less than a year at the cost
of over 20 lives. It was
over 1700 miles, but in the years since it has been re-routed and straightened
and is now 1387 miles stretching from Dawson Creek BC to Delta Junction AK.
The US Army built it using soldiers
and civilian contractors from the US and Canada. At the end of the war, the Canadian portion
(the majority) was turned over to Canada.
In 1948 the highway was opened to the public and was finally completely paved
in the 1980s, although a good bit of that is a chip-seal surface that can still
do a lot of damage to vehicles.
Our heads tell us it should be a piece of cake driving this
thing; our sense of adventure says otherwise.
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