Cooperation between soldiers and civilians and between the citizens of two countries made the colossal project, the Alaska-Canada Highway, happen.
Canada entered WWII when Great Britain did, two years before Pearl Harbor pulled the United States in. Mackenzie King and Canada’s other leaders recognized the Japanese threat to North America long before leaders in the States got beyond vaguely worrying about it.
Canada couldn’t build a Highway north to Alaska. Battles all over the world absorbed her young men and her treasure. But Canada could and did build a string of airfields north from Edmonton so the allies could at least fly men, weapons and supplies north to where the Japanese would most likely attack—Alaska.
Well before Pearl Harbor, Canadians attacked the wilderness to put airfields in place at Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Whitehorse and elsewhere to give pilots flying north from Edmonton places to stop and refuel on their trip north. They called it the Northwest Staging Route (NWSR).
After Pearl Harbor when leaders in the states panicked and dispatched the Corps of Engineers north to build an emergency highway from the railhead at Dawson Creek to Fairbanks Alaska, the Canadians took the highly unusual step of giving the Engineers unrestricted access to Canadian territory.
And Canadian citizens put up with the arrogance the Yankee soldiers brought to the job.
Canada kept right on improving the NWSR, using the new highway for somewhat easier access to the airfields. And in 1943 Canadian contractors joined American contractors in the effort to turn the pioneer road into a road.’
When the Japanese made everyone’s fear real, attacked Kiska and Attu, Canadian soldiers fought alongside American soldiers in some of the most horrific battles of the war to get those islands back.
Video from the Provincial Archives of Canada