Two bulldozers met in the woods and the publicity machine launched. Colonels and generals had got bulldozers from the 97th and the 18th in the same place, therefore they had completed the Alaska Highway. End of story. On to a dramatic opening ceremony.
Two Bulldozers in the Same Place
Secretary of War Henry Stimson issued a press statement two weeks before the regiments actually met at the White River. “Trucks,” he said, “started to roll the entire 1671 mile length of the Alcan Highway this week, carrying munitions and material to troops in Alaska…”
Not exactly.
Staff officers in Whitehorse looked for a location for an opening ceremony well south of the messy permafrost at the border. Last summer the 18th Engineers had built road along the western shore of beautiful Lake Kluane. Perfect. Staff officers named a high point there “Soldiers Summit” and scurried to make a ceremony happen.
In Yukon, of course, a significant piece of the road still didn’t exist. The soldiers of the 18th still labored to complete the road to the White River and the soldiers of the 97th still labored south to meet them there. The scurrying staff officers in Whitehorse worked at desks next to roaring stoves. The soldiers didn’t.
The soldiers of two regiments made it to the White River before the ceremony happened—but only because weather delayed the ceremony.
On November 20, dignitaries from Canada joined dignitaries from the United States in barracks at the south end of Kluane Lake. Heath Twichell described the accommodations. “By the standards of the Yukon wilderness in the middle of November, the accommodations at Kluane Lake were deluxe. Stove-heated, generator-lit, and redolent of spruce planks and tar-paper…” barracks housed them in comfort.
The next morning at Soldiers Summit the 18th Engineers band stood by. Flags fluttered from fresh cut spruce flagpoles. At 9:30 the convoy of dignitaries arrived. They heard speeches. Two honored guests cut a ribbon while the guests cheered and the band played “God Save the King” and the “Star Spangled Banner.”
Two young soldiers and their Dodge half-ton weapons carrier arrived, leading a convoy of trucks. The band serenaded them as they pulled away up the Highway. From Twichell, “By the time [they] reached the bleak outwash valley beyond Kluane Lake, General O’Conner and his guests were sitting down to a feast of “moose steak a la Donjek…”
In February President Roosevelt had ordered up a land route to Alaska. In November the Army presented him with one. But very few vehicles would drive through to Fairbanks that winter.