The Alaskan Hwy Stretches from Dawson Creek, BC to Fairbanks, Alaska – a total of about 1400 miles. It was constructed by the United States Military During WW!! in response to growing fears that Japan could invade the US through Alaska. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan had increased its aggression and had bombed, and then occupied, several of the Aleutian islands (a chain of islands belonging to Alaska.) The US realized that, with no overland route to Alaska (one could only reach Alaska by boat from the Seattle or Vancouver area) Alaska was terrible vulnerable. Their mission sounded simple – create a road from Canada to Alaska, following the already established chain of air supply bases, and do it in less than a year. The hitch in this plan? This was totally uncharted area. No one knew what to expect nor how to go about creating a road in the frigid temperatures in which they would have to work.
But work, they did - 12,000 troops worked day and night to complete the Alaskan Hwy (then called the ALCAN- for Alaska/Canada Hwy) in 8 months! The road was completed in Oct1942.
We arrived at Dawson Creek about 11am Tues. We took the obligatory picture by the “0” mile marker-
Then toured the Alaskan Hwy Museum and learned all about the construction of the Alaskan Hwy..
Walked around the downtown -
And enjoyed looking at the street murals-
Then, we started off on OUR journey on ‘the Alaskan Hwy’ ------Mile “0” -------. 2,600 miles from Farmerville, La………
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