 When the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, they upset our thinking about a great many things, including Alaska. Most people, if they thought of Alaska at all, thought of it as a cold rugged wasteland of little value except for its gold, fur, and fisheries. Now suddenly it seemed to have considerable additional value, both to us and to the Japanese, and its strategic position was not comforting. From Alaska, the Aleutian Islands stretched out invitingly toward a shrewd and daring enemy. The great Japanese air and naval base at Paramushiro was only 750 miles from Atu. Atu was only 1200 miles from the mainland of Alaska, and Japs and Alaska would be a direct threat to the west coast of America and also to the interior. Alaska's long and broken coastline was weakly defended. Our bases were few and far between, and our only means of supplying them was by sea or by air. There was no overland connection across the wilderness of northwestern Canada, not even a trail. If our shipping lanes could be interrupted, Alaska might fall. The situation called for immediate action. The Canadian government had already carved out a series of five airports between Edmonton, Alberta and Whitehorse Yukon Territory. And there were other fields in Alaska between the Yukon border and Fairbanks. With Canada's consent, the United States War Department decided to build a military highway from Rails End at Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska to link up and supply these airfields and to provide emergency access to Alaska for troops and materiel. This highway would extend roughly 1500 miles, about the distance from Washington to Denver. The frontier town of Dawson Creek saw the arrival of the First Army Engineer Troops in March 1942. Here they set up a camp. Enlisted men were trained in the special problems of maintenance and operation of tractors in the north. Their stiff workouts in sub-zero weather over the surrounding hills soon produced skilled catskinners. Before the arrival of additional engineer troops, these first troops moved out over a trail broken by the Canadian Department of Transport to Fort Nelson. Where they established a base camp and began working northwest. Other regiments entered the Yukon through Skagway and established a base at Whitehorse. They began working both northwest and southeast. Still other regiments entered Alaska at Valdez and moved up to a point in the interior. From here they began working toward Fairbanks and toward the Yukon border. In all there were seven engineer regiments, or about 10,000 men. Their immediate job was to break through a pioneer road. A road without frills, but a road which could be used to supply the airfields and to construct a permanent road later. Cut and gouged their way through the wilderness. They were colored as well as white troops. Both did their full share. They cut around mountain sides and across valleys. They corduroyed and filled over swampy ground. They slid it in the mud of thawing ground frost. They built bridges over mountain torrents and full-fledged rivers. They on the 20th of November 1942, eight months after the first troops plunged into the northern bush, the pioneer road from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks was officially opened. The freight rolled through. Drivers were surprised to find that the road was much better than they expected. In fact, considering its length, more than 1,500 miles, the difficulties of terrain and climate, and the remarkably short time of construction, it was one of the wonders of the modern world. 40 years ago, as a gold mining camp, was already a modern little American city in the heart of the Alaskan wilderness. Of course, the highway was still largely a winter road, usable in some sections only when the ground was frozen. Its bridges were temporary, and many of them would be washed out by the ice and floods in the spring. Even during the winter, bridges over active streams were sometimes covered by ice, and logs had to be laid across them and cemented in place by water to keep the trucks from breaking through. And there were other hazards. Active springs built up mounds of ice that had to be fought constantly. When culverts plugged up and ice mushroomed over the road, it had to be cleared, even at 40 below, or a truck might stall in a rut or ditch where ice was forming. And while the driver went for help, it would be frozen fast. At many points, the grades were too steep, especially when they became icy. The machines worked constantly, but it was impossible to keep the road safe at all times and places. Even on the best sections, if drivers relaxed for a moment, they might find themselves in a ditch. It worked the clock round, patrolling up and down the highway, dragging trucks out of trouble whenever they found them. Troll stations, established at 100-mile intervals, were manned by quartermaster troops, who checked over and refueled each truck as it came through. Troops had to repair and service their equipment as best they could. But repair facilities were badly overtaxed. Both spare parts and mechanics were scarce. Many trucks were deadline for weeks at a time. At the start, troops working on the highway had only tents for living quarters. By the beginning of 1943, however, most of them were living in quonset huts. Sometimes, for added warmth, they were banked with sawdust. They came in sections and could be erected in a few hours. Following closely behind the soldiers who built the Pioneer Road, came civilian contractors to turn it into a permanent all-weather road. They established their own camps and repair facilities at vantage points along the route. There were public roads administration surveyors to relocate and improve the alignment of the road. There were skilled crews with power shovels to widen the road and cut down graves. There were crews with trucks to haul gravel from the borrow pits, which were opened all up and down the highway. There were moving machines as well as trucks to build up the road. There were bulldozers to spread and pack the gravel, and dozers to dig drainage ditches. There were motor graders to smooth the service. There were skilled structural workers and carpenters to build permanent bridges, replacing the temporary ones of the engineers. Ranged new patterns and steel rose against the cold northern sky. There were telephone crews to put in a line stretching the entire length of the highway. The signal corps directed the work, and its men did the pioneering. This activity demanded a constant flow of supplies, both up the highway and by sea. The Japs, although they had been entrenched in the Aleutians since June of 1942, were unable to interfere with coast-wise shipping to Alaska, so it was possible to increase the volume of supplies moving in through Skagway. It was built up as the gateway to the fabulous Klondike during the Gold Rush of 97 and 98, when gamblers and desperados like Sophie Smith held sway. Then it became a ghost town, surviving only as a small port and railroad terminal, attracting a few hundred tourists each summer. Suddenly it came to life again, as a transfer point for troops and supplies for the Alaska highway. Hort facilities were improved and enlarged. The hork was extended. Readers coming up the inside passage from Prince Rupert in British Columbia could be unloaded quickly and easily. Barges, boats, and railways, could be unloaded quickly and easily. Barges could be beached and unloaded at low tide. From Skagway, supplies moved across the mountains on the narrow-gauge White Pass and Yukon Railway. This winding railway is one of the steepest in the world. It follows closely the famous trail of 98, on which many a man lost his life climbing its icy ledges on its way to the Klondike. To make sure the railway would continue to operate during the emergency, the Army leased it and installed a railroad operating battalion to run it. All winter long, in spite of cold and snow and treacherous rock slides, these trainmen in uniform kept supplies and equipment rolling steadily the 110 miles into Whitehorse. As an example of the railroad troops' devotion to duty, one engineer was awarded the Soldiers Medal for risking his life to save a train from destruction. Whitehorse, at the head of navigation on the Yukon River, 40 years ago in its gold rush heyday, boasted a population of 20,000 people, which later dwindled to a few hundred, reawakening through the unfamiliar voices of soldiers and truck drivers and catskinners. Spring and summer, the road building continued. By now, there were 81 contractors and about 14,000 men scattered along the highway. Crews worked in two shifts of sometimes 10 and sometimes 11 hours each. Specifications called for a 26-foot roadbed with 20 to 22 feet of surfacing with gravel or crushed stones, and in addition to the highway itself, an important supplement was being built, the Haines Cut-Off. Running from Haines in the Alaska Panhandle, 160 miles north to a point on the highway, 95 miles west of Whitehorse, the Cut-Off was designed to relieve the strain on the White Pass and Yukon Railway. It was begun in the spring of 1943 with engineered troops pioneering the road south from the Alaska Highway. At the same time, civilian contractors started north from Chilkoot Barracks, an early military post which lay just outside the village of Haines. For the first 42 miles, an old motor road was improved, widened, and in places relocated. On its way to the Alaska-Yukon border, this road wound through spruce and poplar forests, over cold mountain streams, and through a sleepy Indian village. From the border northward, the route fallen an old track trail. Here the contractors started from scratch, clearing timber, grading. On reaching the pioneer road of the engineers, the civilian crews continued along it, improving and widening it all the way to the main highway. When the Haines Cut-Off was finished in the fall of 1943, the Alaska Highway had an all-weather connection with tide water. The highway and the Cut-Off were nearing completion. So were the emergency flight strips being built by the Canadian Department of Transport and the United States Army engineers. They faced between airports to provide a safe landing surface for pilots who suddenly ran into trouble. In addition, the engineers were improving the airports themselves. Extra hangers were built. Sunways and aprons were added. These airports were enlarged, and the flight strips were built not only to speed American planes into Alaska, but also to service red-starred fighters and bombers being ferried on land least direct to Russia. At the same time, most of the 86 major bridges on the highway were being finished. The largest of these was the Peace River Bridge, spanning one of the great rivers of the North. Near the southern end of the highway, the bridge is 2,275 feet long, with two suspension towers reaching 200 feet high and a concrete deck 24 feet wide. The bridge was officially opened in August 1943. Soldiers and construction workers came from various sections of the highway. There were officers and officials representing both the United States and Canada. There were speeches. There was a ribbon to be cut. But the crowd didn't need to be told of the importance of the occasion. The towering bridge itself was ample evidence of the new day dawning in the North. Now the lower half of the highway was finished. In all seasons, trucks from Dawson Creek could travel straight through to Whitehorse. At intervals of about 100 miles, there were relay stations where the trucks were checked over and refueled. In the pioneering days, most of the fuel used on the highway was trucked from railhead at Dawson Creek or brought up the inside passage in tankers to Skagway. But with the completion of the Kanol project, with its refinery and network of pipelines, the Alaska Highway had its own fueling system. Oil from Norman Wells was refined at Whitehorse and gasoline was pumped through supplementary pipelines to all points on the highway from Watson Lake to Fairbanks. By October 1943, there was only one gap left in the highway. It was just east of the Alaska-Uconn border. On the 13th of October, the remaining gap was only a few hundred feet. There were two crews working toward each other. In this section, there was permanent ground frost. That meant the ground stayed frozen all summer long down to a depth of 50 or 60 feet. If the surface cover of moss and vegetation were disturbed, the ground would quickly thaw and become a quagmire. So the contractors used a road-building technique peculiar to the north. Rock fill and gravel were spilled out on the ground and carefully spread over the surface. In this way, insulation was added to that already provided by nature, and the frost was permanently locked in. When the end was in sight, the truck drivers and cat skaters, the foremen and superintendents, felt the growing excitement. They were witnessing the climax of 20 long months of toil by 25,000 men. It was six o'clock. The sun was down. The bulldozers moved in. Their blades touched. The Alaska highway was finished. A handshake in the gloom of an autumn evening marked the end. This is the road these men built. This is a good road, as good as any gravel road in the world. Better in alignment and grades than any road of comparable length on this continent. But the Alaska highway is much more than a road, much more than a brilliant construction feat. It is the backbone of our military position in the far northwest. Its smooth surface provides a safe, all-weather route for trucks and cars from the transportation network of Southern Canada to the interior of Alaska. Through the 1600 miles of integrated can-all pipelines, fuel to supply the road, the airports and the flight strips is readily available. Now we can press home the attack. This is the road through the brooding wilderness. This is the wedge which has pried open the last great frontier of America. The key which has unlocked the treasure chest of Alaska and the Canadian Northwest.