Publicity took over the project when, in British Columbia two regiments, the 35th and the 340th, met, in September at Contact Creek; opened the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek to Whitehorse. Heath Twichell explained. “Many miles of filling and grading in both directions from Contact Creek remained to be done, but the Army knew a good public relations opportunity when it saw one. On September 22, two young soldiers… loaded… a Dodge half-ton weapons carrier and left Dawson Creek with orders to get through to Whitehorse.” Averaging 15 mph it took them five days to get there.
But the trip brought publicity. On September 27, photographers captured two grinning soldiers chatting with a Mountie in front of a dusty weapons carrier that bore a freshly painted sign, “First Truck, Dawson Creek to Whitehorse”
The Army, and the Alaska Highway Project had caught the attention of the press and up north in Yukon one last gap remained—between the 18th and the 97th. Correspondents descended on Yukon Territory, observing and reporting the effort to, as Fred Rust remembered it, “close the last gap in the Alcan Highway, a final effort to finish a race now watched by millions.”
Colonel Earl G. Paules commanded the northern sector; sat squarely in the hot seat. Publicity could go either way. He needed his two regiments to meet—soon.
With luck the 18th could get completed, graveled highway as far as the White River. The 97th and the civilians gravelling behind them, had completed highway as far as the border. The fifty-five miles between the border and the White, though, would run over a vast lake of permafrost.
Paules had one advantage—in October temperatures had dropped and frozen the permafrost to a solid base. Across that last fifty-five miles he would ignore the permafrost. He would build the highway on the temporarily solid base of ice. The press wouldn’t know the difference and when the permafrost melted in spring civilian contractors could deal with it.