Talk:Alaska Highway/Archive 1

Archive 1

Cleanup requested

The map only shows the Canadian portion. It also looks like it extends into Alberta, which contradicts the article. -- Beland 04:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The image has now been replaced by a more accurate one. -- kenb215 talk 19:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Verification required

How accurate is the information about the Canadian government repurchasing the rights to the highway? My cursory of the facts dictates otherwise.Nathans 05:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I have surveyed several websites listing the highway's history, and no sale was ever mentioned. I am removing it.--Nathans 09:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Ken S. Coates and William R. Morrison (1988). Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon. Hurtig Publishers, Edmonton. ISBN, which is the standard scholarly history of the Yukon, states:

"The federal government eventually paid $123,500,000 to the United States for permanent installations along the Alaska Highway and the staging route".

So I have put the more accurate mention back in. Luigizanasi 15:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC.)

I agree with Nathan above that there was no sale of the Alaska Highway by the U.S. to Canada. Construction of the highway, which by one estimate cost upwards of $500 million, was officially transferred to Canada in 1946. (Bob Beattie, director of northern research for the Bank of Canada, P. 89, The Alaska Highway: Papers of the 40th Anniversary Symposium, Kenneth Coates, ed.,University of British Columbia Press,1985).

The $123,500,000 figure attributed to Kenneth Coates was, as indicated, in payment for "permanent installations" along the staging routes and the highway. (Ibid, Curtis R. Nordman,The Army of Occupation: Malcolm MacDonald and U.S. Military Involvement in the Canadian Northwest;P. 92

"This figure represents total Canadian expenditures for U.S. Defence Projects in the north and can be broken down as follows: $76,800,000 paid in 1944 for permanent installations along the northeast and northwest staging routes and the Alaska Highway; an additional $12,000,000 paid in 1946 for facilities along the staging routes and the Alaska Highway; and $34,700,000 in Canadian expenditures that were to have been reimbursed, but which were written off by Canada;" Ibid, Shelagh Grant,"Canada Rediscovers Her North,," (Trent University, unpublished paper,1979).P. 93.

These permanent installations and facilities consisted of items such as "civil aviation facilities for peacetime use in this country." Ibid: McKenzie King, Canada prime minister, P. 92.; also, telegraph stations, maintenance facilities, etc.Jlar555 20:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

good writing, but who is author i cannot find it

Twinning of road lanes

Have there been any proposals over the decades to "twin" the road, i.e. upgrade it to four lanes, or do any other sort of expansion? If so perhaps it would be good material for the article. -Rolypolyman (talk) 21:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Military waste/spending

there's a passage in The Newspapering Murrays by Georgina Keddell, which is a biography of her parents "Ma" and George Murray, who were the publishers of the Alaska Highway News in Fort St. John (or Dawson Creek??), about their dismay with the amount of usable goods that were bulldozed into the muskeg by the US Army rather than distributed to the impoverished people of the north country...refrigerators, stoves, clothing.......there may be in old copies of that newspaper Ma's editorials on the subject; otherwise the book is a great read, though it's not just about the heyday of Alaska Highway construction; other passages in the book are about the finding of the route and also about what Ft St John/Dawson Creek was like at the time.Skookum1 (talk) 02:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

African American troops?

Also, though not in that book, if I'm not mistaken a lot of the US Army troops engaged in construction were African American. Not sure where I read that...Skookum1 (talk) 02:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Managed to find one cite for that On the Trail of the Yukon's Black Pioneers, Crawford Kilian, The Tyee, Nov 18, 2009.Skookum1 (talk) 15:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

According to an ep of the History Channel show Modern Marvels nearly 4,000 African-Americans worked on the road.Sector001 (talk) 14:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

finding of Liard Hot Springs

There's also the stories about the "tropical eden" of the warm valley found around Liard Hot Springs....Skookum1 (talk) 02:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

contradiction

"connects the contiguous U.S. to Alaska through Canada. It runs from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Delta Junction, Alaska"

if it runs from somewhere in british columbia to alaska, surely it doesn't connect to the contiguous US ? at least not via another highway.... ☭ мдснєтє тдлк^ЅТЦФФ 11:53, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. That could use some clarification. I'll try to tighten it up. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:15, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Direction in Yukon

Residents and travellers, and the government of the Yukon, do not use "east" and "west" to refer to direction of travel on the Yukon section, even though this is the predominant bearing of the Yukon portion of the highway

This is not true. The junction sign with the Robert Campbell Highway (Yukon Highway 4) clearly indicates that Highway 1 West goes toward Whitehorse, and Highway 1 East goes toward Dawson Creek. Whether residents or local government officials use those directional designations, however, is not known to me. 64.85.240.22 (talk) 23:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that is the point. The signs may say one thing, but locals, including the local government, may call it something else. That's pretty much the way it is in the entirety of Yukon, North B.C. and Alaska. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

U.S. Route 97 category

I don't think this belongs on that category. The reason is quite simple, while another Wikipedia article says that at some point it was planned that portions of the Alcan be designated as part of this route, it never actually happened and therefore there is no information in this article relating to U.S. route 97. It does not make sense to have an article in a category if it has no information in it related to that category. If there was a Category:roads that might have been part of U.S. Route 97 at some point but never actually were we could add it to that, but to add it to a category for articles related to a route it was never part of is not a helpful to our readers. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:53, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The quote that I used in my undo of your removal of the category was taken from this very article! So, should the [[Category:U.S. Highways in Alaska]] category be removed from the page? I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I thought it was kind of logical to add the US 97 category to this article. Allen (Morriswa) (talk) 01:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Expanding construction subsecion

Ok obviously the entire article could use some work and expansion, but I'd especially like to see the construction subsection improved. I stumbled across an episode of the tv program Modern Marvels on History Channel today which detailed the struggles to build the road through the rough territory. What they went through to build it was truly inspirational (just MHO). I made one addition to the article from the episode, but (just a pesonal preference) I really hate to cite a lot from tv shows. Maybe there are other, more standard, sources that could provide detail. I'd take this project on myself now but I have a long list of others ahead of it so it might be sometime til I get back to it. Can anyone else step up? Sector001 (talk) 15:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Bypassed segments

So that yet again, we're not giving undue weight to something just because it is listed on the NRHP: the end portions of the old road between Tetlin Junction and Tok were still passable/used by locals for many years. I haven't paid any attention to its current state, but I'm pretty sure that the portions closest to the Tanana River have long been impassable due to debris in the roadway. There's also no river crossing; as there is/was an old truss bridge at the current highway's crossing of the Tanana, I would believe this portion was bypassed a long time ago. This Tok end is mainly used to access the Tanana. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 04:30, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Haven't been down that way in recent history, but I'm pretty sure that "was a truss bridge" is correct, that this bridge has since been replaced. I believe this was the bridge damaged by a young trucker who didn't pay attention to such evidently trivial matters as clearances before proceeding. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 04:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, since I'm at the library, I grabbed a copy of the 2012 Milepost. The original bridge was built in 1943 and the new bridge in 2011. The turnoff to the old road is directly next to milepost 1303, though there appear to be other roads behind the highway running to the back of the old Forty Mile Roadhouse at Tetlin Junction. So here's the tricky part as far as reliable sources go. Locals in Tok refer to this road as part of the original highway, but the old bridge would indicate that it was bypassed early on, so it's hard to say where one would go to find sources to verify this. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 04:00, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Donald versus Thomas MacDonald

This article previously made reference in the history section to Donald MacDonald (Jr., I think) and his role in promoting the highway's construction. Donald MacDonald was a civil engineer who originally came to Alaska to help build the Alaska Railroad as resident engineer, then spent many more years as an engineer with the Alaska Road Commission. At some point, the article was changed to refer to Thomas Harris MacDonald. Reading that article, I saw a gushing hagiography of some anonymous federal bureaucrat, which referenced a connection to the highway, though largely incidental in nature. Let's see what the sources say, shall we? Tewkesbury's Who's Who, published in 1947, says the following about Donald MacDonald:

"office engr. working under Col. James Truitt on survey of proposed railroad from Prince George to Teller, 2,260 miles surveyed in 1 yr. 1942-43;"..."Proposed Alaska Internat. Highway and Airway from U.S. to connect with Trans-Siberian R.R., etc., 1928; appointed by Pres. as Alaskan mem. of Alaskan Internat. Highway Commn., 1928; highway proposal included branches to Anchorage, Haines and Fortymile, 2 of which have been built (Fortymile now under constr.)."

I referenced the 2012 Milepost in the previous section, which mentions a roadside interpretive panel a short distance east of the Robertson River bridge. It reads in part:

"When Alaska Road Commissioner Donald MacDonald heard Clyde "Slim" Williams was mushing from Alaska to the Chicago World's Fair, he was delighted. It was perfect for promoting his idea for a highway linking Alaska with the Lower 48. He wired Slim at one of his stops asking him to place a banner on his sled and become a spokesman for the proposed road."

The bottom line here is that we have two sources, spaced 65 years apart, which agree that this was Donald MacDonald's idea. Furthermore, I Googled "donald macdonald fairbanks alaska" and came up with even more goodies: a BLM newsletter from 2000 affirming the Slim Williams connection, plus various books and newspaper articles which mention his membership on the Alaskan International Highway Commission, his subsequent formation of the International Highway Assocation to promote the idea, and references to him as the "Father of the Alaska Highway". Additionally, one of Claus Naske's books makes mention of Ernest Gruening taking a role in promoting the highway early in his tenure as territorial governor. For the most part, that centered on Gruening pushing for a coastal route and being rebuffed by military planners. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 04:00, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I wish Gruening had won that argument... Anyhoo, The Milepost isn't exactly the New York Times, but they do have a reputation for fact checking and I would consider them a reliable source for historical tidbits like this. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I am Donald MacDonald's great, great granddaughter. The Alaska Highway was his idea and he received support/approval from President Roosevelt to make it a reality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:280:4D00:DA0E:8459:BB07:4662:83A8 (talk) 04:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Miles should go first

Miles should be listed ahead of kilometers in this article because it involves US topic and because the references for the article use miles and not kilometers. If there are no objections I will make those changes in the coming days. Calidum 01:13, 30 September 2015 (UTC)