Deep forest and rugged mountains, 175 miles to the Sikanni Chief River and then 150 more miles on to Fort Nelson, confronted a traveler going north from Dawson Creek at the turn of the century. He travelled a path that had changed little from that used by the primordial First Nations. The forty-six miles from …
Category Archives: Alaska Trails and Roads
Three Hundred Sixty-five Miles
Three hundred sixty-five miles of Richardson Highway, barren of towns or settlements lay between Valdez and Fairbanks when Richardson built it just after the turn of the century. For travelers, the rough road took a toll in exhaustion, and winter added snow and bitter cold. In summer people travelled it in wagons pulled by mules …
Richardson and His Highway
Richardson, Major Wilds Richardson, came to Alaska in 1906 to replace Abercrombie’s trail with an actual highway. Like Abercrombie Richardson started at the Port of Valdez, upgrading Abercrombie’s trail. But by 1906 the Klondike Gold Rush lay in the past. New gold fields lay close to Fairbanks. That and the city’s central location turned Fairbanks …
Luckily only a Few
Luckily few people had any reason to travel from the Port of Valdez into Alaska’s vast interior. Those who did faced a thoroughly daunting challenge. They faced subarctic weather; and, much worse, they faced range after range of virtually impassable glaciers and mountains. But then came the gold strike on the Klondike. Luckily no longer …
The Subarctic North Lay in Wait
The subarctic north lay in wait for the soldiers of the Corps of Engineers at the end of the 1940’s. A few daring men flew over it. A primitive system of primordial trails traversed it from the farming village of Dawson Creek through a string of tiny settlements to the almost city of Whitehorse and …
Since 1942
Since 1942 thousands of men and two governments have struggled to complete the Alaska Highway. It hasn’t happened yet. In the summer of 2017, men and heavy equipment worked over several miles of the Highway north of Kluane Lake. Waiting for their turn to pass through the construction zone, some drivers got out to …
Rippling Rhythm Boulevard
Rippling rhythm describes bouncing truck tires rolling over corduroy. And on the Alaska Highway in 1942 corduroy had nothing to do with fabric. The road builders fought one of Mother Nature’s fiercest weapons with their version of “corduroy”. From the southern end of the route in British Columbia to the northern end in Alaska, nature …
Blazing the Path of the Alcan
Blazing the 1800-mile path of the Alaska Highway, soldier topographers led the way into the subarctic wilds of Northern Canada and Alaska in 1942. The first road builders rushed into frigid British Columbia in March. The soldiers of the 29th and the 648th Topographic Battalions had come in February. Instead of maps, the topographers had …
Diphtheria in Nome
Diphtheria antitoxin expires. In the summer of 1924 Dr. Welch, the only doctor in Nome Alaska, discovered that his batch had done just that, and he immediately ordered more. But anything coming to Nome in 1925 came over oceans; and the Port of Nome, just two degrees shy of the Arctic Circle, closed in November; …
Ice Posed the Biggest Problem in the Winter
Subarctic Cold and Vehicles Ice posed a much bigger problem than snow to the soldiers working on the Alaska Highway into the winter of 1942. When snow came, bulldozers and graders could remove it relatively easily. Ice was a different matter. At more than 250 places between Watson Lake and the Alaska border frequent icing …
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