March 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the start of construction on the Alaska Highway
"Winding 1,387 miles through some of North America's most extreme environments, it was the most ambitious construction project since the Panama Canal and built to defend a continent.
...Until 1930, Alaska was only accessible by boat from the contiguous US, and as US relations cooled with Japan, the isolated territory seemed especially at risk against a potential Japanese attack against the North American mainland, as Alaska's Aleutian Islands are just 750 miles from the closest Japanese military base...."
"...back [in the 9150s] when much of the now-paved track was still gravel, [the late Marl] Brown noticed that some of the 174 steam shovels, 374 blade graders, 904 tractors and 5,000 trucks used to build the road had been discarded and were rusting away.
"They were working so fast, when a bulldozer, grader or truck broke, it was pushed out of the way and they kept going,..."
"...Incredibly, it only took 10 months to build the Alaska Highway ... With the extra daylight of the midnight sun, crews worked double shifts in the summer, and 400 miles of road were laid in July 1942 alone. Crossing 129 rivers and 8,000 mountain streams, the highway was built in sections by seven US Army regiments...."
"...Eighty years ago, when facing a threat, two countries came together in friendship to build an impossible road to prevent an attack that never came."
1946 The Alaska Highway; northern airfields and communications of the U.S. army from Edmonton to Alaska was turned over to Canada at White Horse. Maj. Bernard Zohn of the U.S. army turns over the highway to Lieut.-Col. J. R. B. Jones (Photo by Randy Quong/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
BBC article here.
"Winding 1,387 miles through some of North America's most extreme environments, it was the most ambitious construction project since the Panama Canal and built to defend a continent.
...Until 1930, Alaska was only accessible by boat from the contiguous US, and as US relations cooled with Japan, the isolated territory seemed especially at risk against a potential Japanese attack against the North American mainland, as Alaska's Aleutian Islands are just 750 miles from the closest Japanese military base...."
"...back [in the 9150s] when much of the now-paved track was still gravel, [the late Marl] Brown noticed that some of the 174 steam shovels, 374 blade graders, 904 tractors and 5,000 trucks used to build the road had been discarded and were rusting away.
"They were working so fast, when a bulldozer, grader or truck broke, it was pushed out of the way and they kept going,..."
"...Incredibly, it only took 10 months to build the Alaska Highway ... With the extra daylight of the midnight sun, crews worked double shifts in the summer, and 400 miles of road were laid in July 1942 alone. Crossing 129 rivers and 8,000 mountain streams, the highway was built in sections by seven US Army regiments...."
"...Eighty years ago, when facing a threat, two countries came together in friendship to build an impossible road to prevent an attack that never came."
1946 The Alaska Highway; northern airfields and communications of the U.S. army from Edmonton to Alaska was turned over to Canada at White Horse. Maj. Bernard Zohn of the U.S. army turns over the highway to Lieut.-Col. J. R. B. Jones (Photo by Randy Quong/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
BBC article here.
Not sure what the maintenance & rest stop situation is these days but I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't improved much.
