Dawson Creek, BC is Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway, formally known as the ALCAN. Until WWII there was no land route from the lower United States to Alaska. War moved the priority for such a land route upwards in the priorities of the governments of both the US and Canada. The Japanese invasion of Dutch Harbor, Alaska increased the pressure to get such a road built. An agreement was made between the US and Canada that the US would largely fund construction of the road and Canada would provide the land. Dawson Creek, BC town swelled in population when the first troops arrived in 1942 to begin construction of a primitive road across the difficult terrain to Fairbanks, Alaska. For those of you interested in history, the story of the construction of the ALCAN is an interesting study in the feats that people can achieve when extreme will is applied. Army Corps of Engineers personnel and private contractors worked in temperatures as low as minus 60 F, across mountain passes and alternatively frozen wilderness or swampy bogs to create a primitive road by October 1943. After WWII control of the ALCAN passed to the Canadian military. It was the early 1960s before civilian traffic was fairly common on the highway. The road was not completely paved until the early 1970s with development of oil on the northern shore.
Today there are two “Mile 0” monuments in Dawson Creek. The first is located a few yards from where the original mile marker once stood.
As part of a memorial celebration, this additional mile marker was placed in the center of Dawson Creek.
Over the years the highway has been improved and straightened so that today there are both “historic” and actual mile markers. (While the highway is now officially paved for its entire length, that’s a bit of a misstatement because it is never actually entirely paved. Every summer sections of the highway are torn up and replaced. Anyone driving the highway can expect to drive long portions of dirt and gravel construction zones, and “paved” portions pocketed with frost heaves and deep bumps.) That’s all part of the adventure. This is our fourth trip to Alaska but the first one that we’ve driven the Alaska Highway northbound. After reading guidebooks and itineraries backwards in the past, it’s rather nice to be able to read left to right and top to bottom this time!
For our RV friends following us north, don’t miss the movie on construction of the ALCAN in the museum attached to the Visitor’s Center in the train station downtown.
As part of a Dawson Creek celebration of its history, murals, in perfect perspective, adorn many of the building in downtown.
Notice the guy wire across the face of the building. The wire is painted into the mural!
Several alleys are adorned with murals like this one of the soldiers at the train station and the local newspaper announcing their arrival.
Doesn’t that moose look real? (Other places wouldn’t the livery house a horse?)
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