Lest you think that The Alaska Highway (TAH) is nothing but smooth sailing through beautiful scenery, I offer this picture. An old joke about Minnesota is that they have 2 seasons: winter and road construction. Up here it’s even more so, with permafrost complicating the picture. The pix was taken on a 3 mile single-lane piece of road where you had to wait for the pilot car for ½ hour. The windshield bug collection is a mere 2 hour’s worth; we clean it every morning and at every gas stop. The dust level is actually moderate in this picture: at times visibility was zero.
TAH was built because the US thought Alaska was ripe for invasion by Japan. In fact, the Japanese did invade a couple Aleutian Islands but it wasn’t a large coordinated effort – unlike the building of TAH. TAH, all1500 miles of it, was built in just 8 months with 11000 US troops, 7 regiments of engineers, 16000 civilians, and 7000 pieces of equipment. The ‘finished’ product wasn’t anything like it is today of course: it was all dirt/gravel and only suitable for tracked vehicles, powerful trucks and 4-wheel drive rigs. It’s all paved now but is still being constantly improved.
Heaves: the bane of Alaska Highway travelers in the Yukon, especially those pulling trailers. You darn well better ease off on the gas or your trailer contents will resemble a large but poorly blended Denver omelet. When I was a kid, heaves meant something entirely different – and that wasn’t good either.
Last night’s show was enjoyable, presented in a nice IMAX-type facility. There were 2 films, one on the northern lights and one on the vastness of the cosmos, reminding us how insignificant we are – microscopic bugs clinging to a pebble. That said, the pebble is remarkable and I'm really quite fond of it.
Yikes, almost as bad as Hwy 4 from Duluth to Island Lake! lol Loving the photos. Keep up the great work. Scenery looks like it's going to get better and better. Never been there, but Virginia Strand, my better half, has. She took off for Alaska the day after she graduated from HS in 1962. Worked as a nanny that whole summer in Soldatna on Kenai Peninsula. Parents drove up in August to pick her up. Al
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