The Visitor Center in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada

Plan to spend an at least an
hour at the Visitor Center in
Watson Lake, YT.

The staff is very knowledgeable and you'll leave with lots of great brochures, maps of the Yukon, other Canadian provinces and Alaskan points of interest.

The eighteen minute film on the Yukon and the construction of the Alaska Highway is wonderfully informative.

Exhibits show life in the Yukon and provide more information on the Alaska Highway.

The first settlers lived in crude

log cabins & relied on dog

sleds for transportation.

Eventually horses were introduced
& travel could be done by sledge
or wagon over the few poorly
developed roads in the Territory.

There was an electric car in

the Yukon in 1904! 

December 7, 1941...
"A date which will live in infamy."









And, nothing was ever the same in Western Canada again.  President Roosevelt authorized construction of the Alaska Highway a full month before Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King authorized the road's construction in Canada.

 

Two routes were considered

for the Alaska Highway.

After the road was completed by the US Army and the Corps of Engineers in 1942, the job of improving this roughly cut pioneer road was handed off to the US Public Roads Administration.  Its job was to straighten the road, improve road bedding and bridges for the heavy trucks and machinery that were to use the road throughout World War II.

Road conditions improved
dramatically under the
administration of the
Public Roads Authority.

Living conditions for those who
 worked on the Alaska Highway

 were primitive.

Seven men were crammed into

tents as they worked the

length of the highway.

Administration of the Alaska
Highway was turned over to
Canada  on April 4, 1946.

In the decades since the Alaska

Highway was cut from Canada

& Alaska's  wilderness, the

road has been upgraded.

From Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Watson Lake, Yukon, Eric and I have encountered a few short stretches of lumpy highway and a two dips in the road that we slowed down for.  I would describe the road to date as a well maintained secondary road with wide road shoulders in most areas.  There are lots off turnoffs with trash cans.  Some turnoffs also have permanent out houses (pit toilets).