The Alaskan Highway was awesome!

The Alaskan Highway starts in Dawson Creek and hopefully the stories about road conditions and my memories from 22 years ago of the Alaska Highway will not be as bad as it sounds. In 2000 only 25% of the whole highway was paved and the rest was some sort of stabilized dirt or gravel. Today they say that the entire highway is paved yet we are hearing tales of terrible road conditions and frost heaves that are real vehicle destroyers. In the great north they have what is called Perma Frost which is portions of land that never thaws out completely and because of this the road surface will buckle and or heave. Sometimes the difference is only inches and others it is OMG! Well, that is what we are being told by other travelers. We will see what it truly is like in days to come. But while we are here in Dawson Creek, we have some stops planned.

For decades the only way to get to Alaska was by train, ship or airplane but with the invasion of Pearl Harbor it became obvious that a road was needed. Alaka in closer to Japan than most of the lower forty-eight and early on in the beginning of WWII Japanese troops actually landed on the outer Aleutian Islands. The US and Canada agreed on a route construction started on April 11, 1942 using both military and civilian personnel. Instead of starting at one point and building to the end several crews were placed along the route and started building each way eventually connecting with other crews. The road was officially completed November 20, 1942, allowing military equipment to flow north to Alaska. However due to the harsh weather and the terrain to this day it is still under construction. Already we have been told of a section of the road completely washing away in a mid-summer flood. One can only imagine what the detour around that may be like:)

We will be hitting some really bad roads so in an effort to protect our vehicles we have place a yoga mat over the windshield. Once we get to the really bad roads, we will also put bubble wrap over the lights. It won’t matter if the lights aren’t really bright since we won’t be driving after dark.

We have moved on to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory and we will be here for only one night. The main attraction here is the signpost forest. It all started in 1942 while building the highway someone put up a sign pointing to their hometown, and it just grew from there! Of course, our tour couldn’t resist the urge and had to put up our own sign.

Next stop is Whitehorse, YK while at the visitor center, we got to see an original Paddlewheel boat that actually hauled freight and passengers on the Yukon River. Whitehorse is also the home of the world’s largest weathervane so of course we had to get a picture of that!

From here we are headed into some really rough roads and the primary goal is to make it to Tok, Alaska without destroying the RV. We have been told that the section between Destruction Bay and Tok is the worst road we will see on the entire trip and trust me they were right. Some parts were so bad that 20MPH was too fast!

We survived some of the worst roads I have ever drove on and arrived at Delta Junction which is the end of the Alaska Highway. Construction of the road took 7 Army regiments and up to 77 private contractors that employed 15,000 men and used 11,000 pieces of equipment.

Since we are in Alaska and having survived the Alaska Highway, I feel his is a good place to end this post. Actually, we are already back in the lower forty-eight and enjoying some warmer, dryer weather and a little slower schedule. With better cell service and Wi-Fi available in most parks I should be able to get caught up. Judy says I need to post more photos and fewer stories, so let me know.