existing airports, considering physical obstacles, on an
alignment that would ensure completion of the road as a
practical military highway in the minimum possible time
employing the maximum of forces and equipment that
could be marshalled and maintained. The story of the
tapid completion of the highway in the time required, the
difficulties met, the obstacles Overcome, and the extra-
ordinary measures adopted has been told in wide and
varying detail and needs no recitation.

Possible routes to Alaska had been under consideration
prior to 1942 and two reports had been submitted, one by
the International Fact-Finding Committee in 1931-32 and
the other by the British Columbia-Yukon-Alaska Highway
Commission (Canada) in 1941. However, in locating the
military highway no consideration could be given to features
affecting its post-war use, such as the tapping of economic
sections, the opening of undeveloped areas, and its integra-
tion with future channels of transportation. No factors
could be considered other than those involved in construct-

ing, in the minimum time, a military road along the air
route to Alaska.

The project caught the imagination of the Canadian and
American people. The Yukon was a land of romance and
mystery; the Klondike story was still fresh in the public
mind, suggesting the promise of untold wealth yet to be
tapped in the great hinterlands of the northwest. The
prospect of a highway through British Columbia and Yukon
to Alaska, which had been projected in 1929 by various
public bodies in the Northwestern States and in British
Columbia, was warmly received by the public generally,
and particularly in Alaska, where pressure for a land route
connecting that territory with the United States had long
been exerted. Volumes were written, following breathless
trips through the area, by journalists—often not too well
informed—and press releases, magazine stories, and books
poured off the presses. The result of this publicity has
been that the peacetime possibilities of the highway have
become exaggerated in the public mind.

The Alaska Highway does not follow a scenic route
(as compared with present highway routes through British
Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwestern States) nor was
this intended. Primarily it is a military road to connect
airports, and, second, a supplemental military supply route.
The numerous scenic sections that are traversed are, to

a degree, prejudiced by the great distances that must be
driven to reach them.

PHYSICAL CHARACTER OF THE HIGHWAY

‘The magnitude of the project, which was carried out
by the United States Corps of Engineers, the need for
speedy construction, and the limited accessibility of the
region suggested the advisability of a two-phase construction
program; the first phase to provide, with utmost rapidity,
a rough minimum road to make possible the early distribution
of a multiplicity of additional crews which, in the second

3681—8}

phase, would complete the road to final standards. The

requirements set forth for the pioneer road were very
broad; specifically as follows:

A pioneer road to be pushed to completion with all speed within

the physical capacity of the troops. The objective is to complete

the entire route at the earliest possible date to a standard sufficient
only for the supply of troops engaged on the work.

The second phase was the construction of a permanent
road of high standard under the direction of the United
States Public Roads Administration.

Early in 1943 these plans were changed and the United
States Corps of Engineers was given seniority in all matters
relative to the highway. The objective was to complete,
in 1943, a good gravel road for military traffic between

Dawson Creek, B.C., and Fairbanks, Alaska.

A route connecting the series of airfields from Fort
St. John, B.C., to Big Delta, on the Richardson Highway
in Alaska, was selected. The nearest railhead was Dawson
Creek, which thus became the southeastern starting point
of the highway. From Dawson Creek to Fort St. John
there was a dirt road passable in dry weather and in winter.
From Fort St. John to Fort Nelson, about 260 miles, there
was a winter trail located mostly on the low ground,
impassable at certain seasons. For the rest of the nearly
1,000 miles from Fort St. John to Whitehorse there was

nothing but a wilderness crossed by an occasional winter or
pack trail.

Although the road was to serve the established system
of airports there was a fair amount of latitude in its loca-
tion since the airports could be reached by branch roads.
Final decision was to abandon the old winter trail to Fort
Nelson and follow the higher ground to the west. This
meant difficult location and construction as much of the
route is in rolling, heavily forested country and does not
always follow well-defined ridges or streams. (There
appears to have been here an undue fear of the soil con.
ditions in the valley sections.) The result is that from
Fort St. John to Fort Nelson the road keeps as much as
possible to high ground, thus limiting its peacetime utility
as a development highway.

From Fort St. John to the upper valley of the Cameron
River the route is northwestward, thence across the
Sikanni Chief and down the Prophet River to a crossing
of the Muskwa at Fort Nelson. Thence it ascends the
valleys of the Muskwa and tributary Tetsa to Summit
Lake, 88 miles west of Fort Nelson, where it crosses the
divide of the Rockies at an elevation of approximately
4,251 feet, the highest point on the entire road. Descending
the west slope of the Rockies the road follows MacDonald
Creek and Racing River, and ascends the Toad River
Valley to a low divide which it crosses to the Muncho
Lake Basin. From Muncho Lake, it descends the valley
of the Trout River to the confluence of that river with the

Liard, crosses the Liard at this point, and follows its north
bank to Watson Lake.

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