The Old ALCAN Highway

Ruthine and Bob feel honored to have driven a part of the old Alcan Highway that is still in use today - if only as a side road to the newer rendition of the Alaska Highway.  During the early part of World War II it became obvious that there was now a military necessity to have a land route to Alaska - a significant territory belonging to the United States, and one in jeopardy of invasion.  The "Alkan" Highway was the military's acronym for the Alaska-Canada military highway, built as a pioneer road through dense wilderness areas between March 9, 1942 and October 25, 1942 - 8 months and 12 days.  There were restrictions placed on civilian traffic on the Alcan during the war years.  It was officially renamed the Alaska Highway in March, 1943, and opened to the public in 1948.

As an Army recruit, Ruthine's uncle, Raymond McClosky, drove a supply truck in this cold and isolated wilderness during the construction of the highway.  He was a man of few words - and Ruthine was too little to know what stories he told.  But while riding along the highway, she and Bob were certainly aware of the hardships that must have been experienced by Uncle Raymond and the other men and women who created this road to Alaska from the few existing winter roads, summer pack trails, and winter trap lines.  Areas of it, where no trails existed, were the result of reconnaissance (with the help of local people living off the land) through river valleys and mountain passes, often waist deep in snow with boxcar size boulders to surmount.  In 1996 the highway was named an "International Historical Engineering Landmark."  This history was paraphrased from the 2010 edition of The Milepost, which referenced Alcan Trail Blazers by Earl Brown.

The following poem is attributed to "an unknown soldier" and appeared in the 1950 edition of The Milepost.  We found it in the 2010 edition of the same publication.

Song of the "Alcan" Pioneers

They gave us a job and we did it;

They said that it couldn't be done.

They figured that time would forbid it.

They licked us before we'd begun.

But there she is - eagles above her

The Road - see, she steams in the snow.

She's ours, and oh God, how we love her,

But now - marching orders - we go.

We started with nothing and won her,

We diced for her honor with death.

We starved, froze and died upon her

And damned her with agonized breath.

Blood-red ran the snow where we lay -

Blood-red rode the sun at her setting,

Cold white are the graves we're forgetting

Cold white are our ashes today.

We leveled the mountains to find her,

We climbed from the pit to the sky,

We conquered the forests to bind her,

We burrowed where mastodons lie.

Smooth, straight and true we have

fashioned.

Clean she is, living, aglow.

The Road - feel her, vibrant,

impassioned -

And now - marching orders - we go.

Go from the stardust of June night,

Go from the beauty we won.

Little lost lakes in the moonlight,

Snow-steepled spires in the sun.

We lend you the road - we who made it,

And bright may your victories burn.

We lend you The Road, we who laid it,

Until the day we return.