On the Alaskan Highway

Day 11 – Monday, August 3, 2009

Happy Heritage Day or British Columbia Day! We have been on the hunt every since we found out that this was a long holiday weekend to find out what the holiday was. We asked 4 different people, and got a variety of different answers. Mostly, no one was very sure, but knew they got it off from work. Here is what the trusty Internet told us:

“The first Monday in August is holiday in most of the Provinces and Territories. What you will often find, however, is that its name changes from province to province, and even amongst different regions within a province. On calendars, it is generally labeled as “Civic Holiday” as not to be region specific. No matter what it is called, it is a much-needed long weekend to augment the short Canadian summers. Here is a listing of some of the names for this Canadian holiday:
Alberta (Heritage Day)
British Columbia (British Columbia Day)
Manitoba & Northwest Territories (Civic Holiday)
New Brunswick (New Brunswick Day)
Nova Scotia (Natal Day)
Ontario (Simcoe Day)
Prince Edward Island (Natal Day)”
Saskatchewan (Saskatchewan Day)

We also found out the most popular way to celebrate this holiday is to go camping! We saw that up close and personal as we tried to get a campsite without a reservation during this past weekend!

So, the time was FINALLY for us to get away from these crowds and see for ourselves this magical highway known as the Alaskan Highway.

We drove from Dawson Creek to Ft. Nelson today, about 300 miles, a medium sized drive for our trip. The first of the U.S. Army engineers took 25 days to drive all of the their heavy road building equipment between these two towns in April 1942 along a dirt road, not much better than a trail. They had a race to get them there, as they had to go over frozen rivers before they thawed. They made it, but it really gives you pause to think. And this is the “easy” part of the building the road. There was already a kind of road/path between these two towns.

Our minds are filled up with images and voices about this project. On one display it was said that this was the most “storied road” in the world, and some of the stories are unbelievable. Not only did they build 1500 miles of road in 8 months, but also built over 130 bridges…Wow! We learned that what was pushed through at this time was called the “pioneer” or “tote” road. Civilian engineers and contractors from both the US and Canada turned it into a real road over the following year. To create an all season road in just two years is also very amazing.

As we are driving this road, we are following a book called Mileposts that tells you nearly mile by mile what happened on the road at this place; what are the names of the rivers, creeks and bridges; where are the gas stations and camp grounds, for example:

Historic Mile 0 - Dawson Creek
Start of the Alaska Highway; Offices of U.S. Corps of Engineers, Public Roads Administration (PRA) and U.S. Quartermaster Corps. In the spring of 1942, the 'end of steel' became a major terminus for troops, supplies and equipment arriving from Edmonton and destined for the north.
Historic Mile 2 - Cantel Repeater Station
Cantel telephone-teletype lines stretched from Alberta to Fairbanks, along the new highway, making it one of the world's longest open wire toll circuits at the time.

Historic Mile 21 - Kiskatinaw Bridge; Wallace A. Mackey Ltd.
A 162-meter curved structure, one of the first of its kind in Canada, is the only original timber bridge built along the highway that is still in use today.

Okay, clearly more info than you might want or need, but also highly interesting as you are driving such a historic road.

Here are some observations from an online source: “Battling subzero temperatures, permafrost, frostbite, gale-force winds, horrifying clouds of mosquitoes, and the occasional brown bear encounter, these regiments (mostly trained in the deep south) completed the Alcan in record time. Using aerial surveys and local guides, the regiments cut an artery through the Northern Rockies and Yukon so that Alaska could be supplied. Work was able to go so fast because the D-8 “dozers” they used could knock down 100-year-old spruce trees in seconds; then the troops would come in and limb the trees and lay them tightly perpendicular to the course of the road to establish a foundation called “corduroy.” Then feet of gravel and rock would be laid on the corduroy and you would have a road. Bridges and culverts seemed to be the time consumer.”

Our travel on this first day on the highway was mostly completed in a steady rain. Fortunately, the traffic was not heavy and we made good time. We stopped several times to get a closer look at some of the sights and historic signs. Patti navigated with several books on her lap, finding stories for many of the events taking place at the locations we passed.

We spent some time in Fort Nelson touring their heritage museum. They were showing yet another video of building the highway. As we watch these different points of view, we have the chance to keep increasing our understanding of what this process really was, and it was amazing.

One of the “interesting people” that we met today was a woman on staff at the museum. She showed us a couple of the locked up buildings and then, got excited about really showing us around and talking about some of the amazing, and also strange things that the had at this museum. Lots of stuff from Hudson Bay days, lots of trapper and pioneer regalia, and LOTS of equipment that had been used to build the highway. As she was explaining it, there was so much of the large equipment that got the heck beat out of it and when the Americans were finished they just let it there. As she said, most everything at the museum has a story to it. And we got a chance to hear a bunch of them from her.

We are reminded again how much later the sun goes down in the north from what it is in San Diego. There was plenty of light to drive further so we drove another hour to find a camp site in a lovely provincial park campground. We set up our little canopy with netting to protect us from the swarms of mosquitoes as we prepared and ate our dinner. With the sun still hitting the tops of the trees, we slid into our bed in the van and were soon asleep.