Driving to Alaska

November 21, 2008

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Profile America — Friday, November 21st. An engineering marvel that many said impossible was completed on this day in 1942, as the Alcan Highway opened — running more than 1,500 miles from Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Fairbanks. Its purpose was to provide a wartime military supply route to isolated but strategically important Alaska. It is still the only land route to Alaska. The road was built through rugged, unmapped Yukon wilderness. Nearly 11,000 men endured weeks of 40 below zero temperatures to complete the road in just eight months. Today, called the Alaska Highway, the road remains a vital transportation link for the state’s growing population of more than 670,000. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Sources: Statistical Abstract of the United States 2008, t. 12
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2008edition.html