Alaska Highway

Map of Alaska Highway (in red)

The Alaska Highway, also the Alaskan Highway, Alaska-Canadian Highway, and the Alcan Highway, runs from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Delta Junction, Alaska, via Whitehorse, Yukon. Its historical length as of all-weather completion in 1943 is 2,451 kilometers or 1,523 mile(s) long. The historic ending of the highway is near milepost 1422, where it meets the Richardson Highway in Delta Junction, Alaska, about 100 miles (160km) southeast of Fairbanks. Mileposts on the Richardson Highway are numbered from Valdez, Alaska.

Construction

Mile zero in Dawson Creek

Proposals for a highway to Alaska originated in the 1930s, and some adventurous people drove overland along projected routes. Since much of the route would pass through Canada, support from the Canadian government was crucial, but absent. That government perceived no value in putting up the funds required to build a road, since the only part of Canada that would benefit would be the fairly small population in the Yukon, not more than a few thousand people.

However, some route consideration was given. The preferred route would pass through the Rocky Mountain trench from Prince George, British Columbia to Dawson City before turning west to Fairbanks, Alaska.

The needs of war dictated the final route, intended to link the airfields of the Northwest Staging Route that conveyed lend-lease aircraft from the United States to the Soviet Union. Thus, the rather impractical, long route over extremely difficult terrain was chosen.

The road was originally built mostly by the US Army as a supply route during World War II. 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 (an advance group started from Fort Nelson, British Columbia after travelling on winter roads on frozen marshland); 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 destined for Iran, and housing originally meant for use in southern California. The eastern linkup occurred at historic Mile 588, known today as Contact Creek.

Although it was completed on October 28, 1942 and its completion was celebrated at Soldier's Summit on that November 21 (and broadcast by radio, the exact outdoor temperature censored due to wartime concerns), the "highway" was not usable by general vehicles until 1943. Even then, there were many steep grades, the surface was poor, there were few or no guardrails, and switchbacks to gain and descend hills. Bridges, which progressed during 1942 from pontoon bridges to temporary log bridges, were replaced with steel bridges where necessary only. One old log bridge can still be seen at the Aishihik river crossing. The easing of the Japanese invasion threat resulted in no more contracts being given to private contractors for upgrading of specific sections.

In particular, some 100 miles of route between Burwash Landing and Koidern, Yukon, became virtually impassable in May and June of 1943, as the permafrost melted, no longer protected by a layer of delicate vegetation. A corduroy road was built to restore the route, and corduroy still underlays old sections of highway in the area. Modern construction methods do not allow the permafrost to melt, either by building a gravel berm on top or replacing the vegetation and soil immediately with gravel.

Post war

Alaska Highway between Fort Nelson and Watson Lake

The original agreement between Canada and the United States regarding construction of the highway stipulated that its Canadian portion be turned over to Canada six months after the end of the war. The Canadian government paid $123,500,000 to the US government for the highway and Northwest Staging Route assets. However, the highway needed considerable reconstruction to make it usable and was only opened to unrestricted traffic in 1947. The Alaska Highway is now completely paved, mostly with Bituminous Surface Treatment.

The Milepost, an extensive guide book to the Alaska Highway and other highways in Alaska and Northwest Canada, was first published in 1949 and continues to be published annually as the foremost guide to travelling the highway.

The Yukon government owns the highway from Historic Mile 630 to 1016 (from near Watson Lake to Haines Junction), and manages the remainder to the US border. Public Works Canada manages the highway from Mile 630 back to approximately Mile 80. The British Columbia government owns the remainder of the highway south.

Extensive rerouting in Canada has shortened the highway by approximately 35 miles (55 km) since 1947, mostly by eliminating winding sections and sometimes by bypassing residential areas. Some old sections of the highway are still in use as local roads, while others are left to deteriorate and still others are ploughed up. Four sections form local residential streets in Whitehorse (3) and Fort Nelson (1), and others form country residential roadways outside of Whitehorse. Although Champagne, Yukon was bypassed in 2002, the old highway is still completely in service for that community until a new direct access road is built.

Rerouting continues, expected to continue in the Yukon through 2009, with the Haines Junction-Beaver Creek section covered by the Canada-U.S. Shakwak Agreement. Under Shakwak, U.S. federal highway money is spent for work done by Canadian contractors who win tenders issued by the Yukon government. The Shakwak Project completed the Haines Highway upgrades in the 1980s between Haines Junction and the Alaska Panhandle, then funding was stalled by Congress for several years.

The Milepost shows the Canadian section of the highway now to be approximately 1187 miles, but the first milepost inside Alaska is 1222. The actual length of the highway inside Alaska is no longer clear because rerouting, as in Canada, has shortened the route, but unlike Canada, mileposts in Alaska are not recalibrated. The B.C. and Yukon governments and Public Works Canada have recalibrated kilometreposts only as far as a point just west of Champagne, with the latest BC recalibration in 1990 and the only Yukon recalibrations in 2002 and 2005 (based on the distance value where the BC calibration of 1990 left off).

There are historical mileposts along the B.C. and Yukon sections of the highway, installed in 1992, that note 83 specific locations, although the posts no longer represent accurate driving distance.

The portion of the Alaska Highway in Alaska is Alaska Route 2. In the Yukon, it is Highway 1 and in British Columbia, BC provincial highway 97.

For people interested in learning more about the history of the Alaska Highway there are several books on its construction, including "Alcan Trail Blazers: Alaska Highway's Forgotten Heros."

Route markings

A monument at the starting point of the Alaska Highway

The Canadian section of the road was delineated with mileposts, based on the road as it was in 1947, until 1978, and over the years, reconstruction steadily shortened the distance between some of those mileposts. That year, metric signs were placed on the highway, and the mileposts were replaced with kilometre posts at the approximate locations of a historic mileage of equal value, e.g. Kmpost 1000 was posted approximately where historical Mile 621 would have been posted.

Reconstruction continues to shorten the highway, but the kilometre posts, at two-km intervals, were recalibrated along the B.C. section of road in 1990 to reflect then-current driving distance. The section of highway covered by the 1990 realignment has since been rendered shorter by further realignments, such as near Summit Pass and between Muncho Lake and Iron Creek.

Based on where those values left off, new Yukon kilometre posts were erected in fall 2002 between the B.C. border and the west end of the new bypass around Champagne, Yukon; in 2005, additional recalibrated posts continued from there to the east shore of Kluane Lake near Silver City. Old kilometre posts, based on the historic miles, remain on the highway from that point around Kluane Lake to the Alaska border. The B.C. and Yukon sections also have a small number of historic mileposts, printed on oval-shaped signs, at locations of historic significance; these special signs were erected in 1992 on the occasion of the highway's 50th anniversary.

The Alaska portion of the highway is still marked by mileposts at one-mile intervals, although they no longer represent accurate driving distance, due to reconstruction.

The historic mileposts are still used by residents and businesses along the highway to refer to their location, and in some cases are also used as postal addresses.

Residents and travelers, and the government of the Yukon, do not use "east" and "west" to refer to direction of travel on the Yukon section, even though this is the predominant bearing of the Yukon portion of the highway; "north" and "south" are used, referring to the south (Dawson Creek) and north (Delta Junction) termini of the highway. This is an important consideration for travelers who may otherwise be confused, particularly when a westbound travel routes southwestward or even due south to circumvent a natural obstacle such as Kluane Lake.

Some B.C. sections west of Fort Nelson also route more east-to-west, with southwest bearings in some section; again, "north" is used in preference to "west".

Adjoining roads

Other roads that join the Alaska Highway include, from South to North:

• British Columbia
  • Hudson's Hope Highway
  • Liard Highway
  • Cassiar Highway

(the Cassiar highway is mostly within B.C., joining the Alaska Hwy one mile inside the Yukon)

• Yukon
  • Campbell Highway
  • Canol Road
  • Atlin Road
  • Tagish Road
  • Klondike Highway
  • Haines Highway

• Alaska
  • Taylor Highway
  • Glenn Highway (Tok Cut-Off)
  • Richardson Highway

Decommissioned road segments still in use

Fort Nelson - Mile 301 to 308, now local residential feeder roads Wildflower Drive, Highland Road, Valleyview Drive

Whitehorse

• Mile 898, now local residential road just west of Yukon River Bridge
• Mile 920.3 to 922.5, now the southern and northern portions of Centennial Street; middle portion is Birch Street
• Mile 922.5 to 922.7, now a portion of Azure Road
• Mile 924, now a portion of Cousins Airfield Road
• Mile 925.5 to 926.9, now Parent Road (east end overlooks Alaska Highway/Klondike Highway junction)
• Mile 927.2 to 927.7, now Echo Valley Road
• Mile 928 to 928.3, now Jackson Road
• Mile 929 to 934, now Old Alaska Highway
• Mile 968, now entrance road to Mendenhall River Subdivision

Champagne-Aishihik traditional territory

• Mile 969 to 981, Champagne loop (bypassed in fall 2002 by 8.6 mile revision)
• Mile 1016, Hume Street in Haines Junction including access to First Nation subdivision

Other decommissioned segments have deteriorated and are no longer usable. More recent construction projects have deliberately ploughed up roadway to close it.

See also

• List of Alaska Routes
• List of Canadian highways by province
• List of Yukon territorial highways
• Road of Bones

External links

• Alaska Highway — A Yukon perspective — From the Yukon Archives
• Alaska Highway Driving Facts — From the authors of the Milepost
• Bell's Alaska — mile by mile description of the Alaska Highway
• Building the Alaska Highway — Companion Website for the PBS program.
• Trans-Global Highway and the AmerAsian Friendship Tunnel
• History of the Alaska Highway — From the authors of the Milepost