The Road Less Traveled - To Alaska

by Jo Curran

Alaska’s capital city, Juneau has a population of just over 30,000. It is a capital you cannot reach by road, only by sea or air. Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska at just over a quarter of a million people is home to 42% of the total state population. Add in Fairbanks, the second largest city, just a bit larger than Juneau, and together you have half of the state’s inhabitants in three cities.

Until you have been there you cannot imagine just how empty the land is, and how large. It is only convenience that restricts Alaska to two time zones. Pacific time in the southeast, (this is the as good as politically and geographically separated coastal area from the Canadian border north to Haines and Skagway, the only two towns in the southeast accessible by road), and Alaska time in the remainder of the state. In fact, the very westernmost of the Aleutian Islands is actually in tomorrow, it lies of the far side of the International Date Line.

If you overlaid a map of Alaska on a map of the lower 48, you would see one is as wide as the other. In fact, Alaska is so wide that the far western islands of the Aleutian chain lies on the other side of the International Date Line.

If you looked at a road map of Alaska and the Yukon, you would be amazed at how few roads there are. Even more astonishing is to learn just how new many of these roads are. It is hard to imagine driving from Anchorage to Denali via Palmer, Paxson and Cantwell, a trip of 420 miles, but it was only in 1971 that the Parks Highway (Highway 3) shortened that 420 mile journey to 240 miles and Anchorage to Fairbanks from 436 to
362 miles. Before World War II Alaska was completely cut off from the rest of the continent, there was no road north of Dawson Creek in British Columbia.

Before 1942 the only permanent military presence in Alaska was Fort William Seward in Haines, a small town accessible to mainland Alaska only by driving through Canada’s British Columbia and the Yukon.

A road north from the lower 48 to Alaska had been contemplated as early as 1930, but it was not until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941 that Washington woke up to the fact that the “back door” to the continent was wide open. In February 1942, a telegram arrived in Louisiana ordering a Captain in the Topographic Battalion of the U.S. Corps of Engineers to “take one company of men and proceed to Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and thence in a northwesterly direction to Fairbanks, Alaska, locating a route for a military road”. They had a month to prepare for departure.

In just 8 months over 1,400 miles of unpaved road were completed by an army of over 10,000 men, linking Dawson Creek to Delta, from where there was an existing direct road to Fairbanks. The general route of the road was determined by a line of existing airfields from Edmonton, Alberta to Fairbanks which had been constructed to assist ferrying over 8,000 aircraft to our allies in Russia. Here, women pilots played a huge role in the war effort. Ferrying these Lend Lease aircraft was not considered dangerous, so the job was given to civilian volunteer women pilots, freeing up their male colleagues to fly combat missions.

The back door did not get closed fast enough. In June, 1942 Japan invaded and occupied two of the western-most of the Aleutian Islands, Attu and Kiska, and held them for a year. Recapturing them cost 550 American lives and 1,148 wounded. The Japanese lost 2,351 and only 28 prisoners were taken. This led to the traumatic forcible removal of Aleut natives, U.S. citizens, from the western-most islands, some of whom did not survive the trauma.

Alaska is a new land as far as American history is concerned, but even at just over 100 years, important things are already disappearing into the mists of time. The road to Alaska might very well be The Road Less Traveled, but the journey is very worthwhile. As you drive through the wide expanses of untrammeled nature, spare a thought for those who slogged 24/7 through cold, rain, snow, mud, dust and mosquitoes to make your journey possible.

Editor’s Note - Jo Curran is a professional tour manager and is available to lead tour groups, families, couples or individuals and can act as a driver and guide. Jo also offers full planning services (with or without a guide) giving you the custom tailored vacation of your dreams just about anywhere in the world. Please contact her at:

travgran at yahoo dot com

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