Dear Blog Readers
Yesterday Birgit and I stopped for lunch at the Canyon Creek Bridge which we then learned was part of the original Alcan Highway construction. This got us thinking about the highway and I thought you all might like a bit of history. The bridge itself (photos below) has been reconstructed and technically you are not allowed to walk on the bridge but it is still a very interesting part of history.
The Al-Can Highway name stands for Alaska-Canada but here in Yukon they just call it the Alaska Highway. This road is 1700 miles long and was built in 1942 and was completed in just 8 months. Today this would take 25 years.
About 20 years ago I saw a photo exhibit on the construction of the highway and the involvement of 4 regiments of black soldiers who up until that time had been segregated and only held subordinate positions in the military. About 1/3rd of the over 10,000 men who worked on the highway were black. While I could go on and on, there is a most excellent write up of the construction here:
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/black-history-in-the-last-frontier-alaska-highway-engineers.htm
And here are some photos:
I don’t know WHO that is in the forbidden bridge!
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