Driving the Alaska Highway: The Legendary Northern Route

A road with a history

President Roosevelt authorized construction in February 1942, and after Japan's attack on Dutch Harbor and its invasion of two Aleutian islands that June, the project went from priority to emergency. Roughly 11,000 US Army Corps of Engineers soldiers, alongside thousands of Canadian and American civilian contractors, pushed a road through nearly 1,700 miles of bush, muskeg, and mountains from Dawson Creek, BC, to Delta Junction, Alaska, in under eight months.

Part of that history deserves more attention than it usually gets. About a third of the soldiers, roughly 3,700 men, were Black troops serving in three segregated regiments, the 93rd, 95th, and 97th Engineer General Service Regiments, plus the 388th Battalion. They were routinely denied the heavy equipment given to white units, worked with axes, picks, and shovels through record cold, and were barred from entering the towns along the route. They built their sections to the same standard regardless. The final gap in the highway closed on October 25, 1942, when a Black soldier from the 97th and a white soldier from the 18th shook hands near what's now Beaver Creek, Yukon, having raced toward each other from opposite ends. Their work is now widely credited as one of the catalysts for the desegregation of the US military in 1948.

Today the highway is the main overland artery into the territory, and markers, museums, and the famous Watson Lake Signpost Forest along the way tell pieces of that story.

The Signpost Forest

In 1942, a homesick soldier named Carl Lindley, recovering from an injury while working on the highway, was assigned to repair a damaged directional signpost. He added one more sign of his own: his hometown of Danville, Illinois, and the distance to it. Other soldiers followed his lead, and the tradition never stopped. What started as one sign is now well over 100,000, added to daily through the travel season, and the site was formally designated a Yukon historic place in 2013.

Road conditions

The Alaska Highway is paved, but the North keeps it interesting: watch for frost heaves, the dips and bumps caused by permafrost thawing unevenly beneath the roadbed, along with occasional gravel construction breaks. Slow down over crests, keep your distance, and expect the surface to change without much warning. The modern route runs about 2,232 km (1,387 mi) end to end, somewhat shorter than the original wartime alignment thanks to decades of straightening and rebuilding.

Must-stops, BC to the Yukon border

Coming from the south, British Columbia has its own highlights worth building into the trip: Liard River Hot Springs, a genuinely hot, undeveloped soaking pool in the middle of the boreal forest, and the Northern Rockies stretch through Stone Mountain and Muncho Lake, where Stone sheep and mountain goats are a common roadside sight.

Watson Lake, just past the Yukon border, is the classic first stop for the Signpost Forest. Teslin, further on, sits on the shore of Teslin Lake within Teslin Tlingit Council traditional territory, with the George Johnston Museum covering local Tlingit history and the life of the community's well-known photographer. Whitehorse is the natural hub for a longer rest and resupply.

Must-stops, west of Whitehorse

West of the capital, the highway skirts Kluane National Park and Kluane Lake, with Tachäl Dhäl (Sheep Mountain) and Haines Junction offering hikes, wildlife, and flightseeing before the road continues toward Beaver Creek. Beaver Creek is the last community in Canada on this route, and also the actual site of that 1942 handshake that completed the highway. From there, the road continues into Alaska toward Tok.

Preparation

Fuel up whenever you can, since some stretches between services run long, carry a good spare tire and basic supplies, and watch for bison, bears, and moose on the road, especially at dawn and dusk. Cell coverage disappears between towns, so download maps and tell someone your plan. Take it slow, the highway rewards the unhurried.