Over the years the Alcan has been continually improved and shortened. I’ve crossed it over a dozen times since that first trip, and have seen new sections laid down and old ones abandoned.
I remember driving up a hog-back ridge of the original highway in 1972, and seeing a new section being laid across the valley below - a straight-arrow as far as the eye could see. It cut off nearly thirty miles of old road. Some cut-off sections form loops and are still maintained; others have been abandoned, leaving spectral images - grass covered swaths wandering off to nowhere.
A new edition of the Milepost will often give two numbers for a location. The second one will be denoted as the “Historic Milepost”, the mileage num
ber of the original road. The numbers I wrote in my journal will thus not correspond to present day Milepost markers, and my memory is not sufficient to provide anything more than a general stab at to where those markers were placed forty-two years ago.
According to my journal I left Edmonton at 1pm Saturday the 24th of June. The repair shop at the Oldsmobile dealership took an amazingly short three days to replace my engine - they did a fine job. I drove from there to Dawson Creek and on to Milepost 52 before stopping for the night - about 450 miles. I groused about paying $2 for “a campsite which turned out to be nothing more than a small piece of lumpy ground to pitch my tent - no table, no fire-pit“. Milepost 52 would have placed me 5 miles beyond Fort St. John. I don’t remember anything about the town from those days, it was petite, but is now the second largest along the Alcan (mining and oil) at 18,000+ citizens.
The camp-site would have been close to where the Hudson’s Hope Loop leads west and south, following the Peace River. It’s a beautiful drive, a bit steep and winding at the north end but passable. I pulled a 30 foot trailer over it in 2005 so it can be done. It connects with the town of Chetwynd, cutting off a few miles if you’re going that way. Chetwynd is on Highway 97 which heads south, going through St. George, following the Fraser River Valley toward Vancouver, BC.
Only five places on the Alcan qualified as towns in 1967. They were: Dawson Creek (Milepost 0), Fort St. Johns (MP 47), Fort Nelson (MP300), Watson Lake (MP635), and Whitehorse (MP 917). Today they possess a size and sophistication that is in marked contrast to the frontier character of forty years ago. I don’t remember muc
h at all about those towns of 1967, and I drove through them again in 68’, 69’, and twice in 72’. They did not change much in those years.
I remember the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. A G.I. started it in 1943. He made a mileage sign with an arrow pointing in the direction to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. Its worth a stop to wander through the forest and look at all variety of items - mostly license plates and town signs, but entertaining oddities can be found throughout.
Mary and I contributed our bookstore sign in 2005. It was a nice onewith a "town cryer" on top We thought the Forest would be a good place to leave it as we had given up the book business. We stopped by on our return in 2006 and found that some jack-ass had stolen it.
I remember driving up a hog-back ridge of the original highway in 1972, and seeing a new section being laid across the valley below - a straight-arrow as far as the eye could see. It cut off nearly thirty miles of old road. Some cut-off sections form loops and are still maintained; others have been abandoned, leaving spectral images - grass covered swaths wandering off to nowhere.
A new edition of the Milepost will often give two numbers for a location. The second one will be denoted as the “Historic Milepost”, the mileage num
ber of the original road. The numbers I wrote in my journal will thus not correspond to present day Milepost markers, and my memory is not sufficient to provide anything more than a general stab at to where those markers were placed forty-two years ago.According to my journal I left Edmonton at 1pm Saturday the 24th of June. The repair shop at the Oldsmobile dealership took an amazingly short three days to replace my engine - they did a fine job. I drove from there to Dawson Creek and on to Milepost 52 before stopping for the night - about 450 miles. I groused about paying $2 for “a campsite which turned out to be nothing more than a small piece of lumpy ground to pitch my tent - no table, no fire-pit“. Milepost 52 would have placed me 5 miles beyond Fort St. John. I don’t remember anything about the town from those days, it was petite, but is now the second largest along the Alcan (mining and oil) at 18,000+ citizens.
The camp-site would have been close to where the Hudson’s Hope Loop leads west and south, following the Peace River. It’s a beautiful drive, a bit steep and winding at the north end but passable. I pulled a 30 foot trailer over it in 2005 so it can be done. It connects with the town of Chetwynd, cutting off a few miles if you’re going that way. Chetwynd is on Highway 97 which heads south, going through St. George, following the Fraser River Valley toward Vancouver, BC.
Only five places on the Alcan qualified as towns in 1967. They were: Dawson Creek (Milepost 0), Fort St. Johns (MP 47), Fort Nelson (MP300), Watson Lake (MP635), and Whitehorse (MP 917). Today they possess a size and sophistication that is in marked contrast to the frontier character of forty years ago. I don’t remember muc
h at all about those towns of 1967, and I drove through them again in 68’, 69’, and twice in 72’. They did not change much in those years.I remember the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. A G.I. started it in 1943. He made a mileage sign with an arrow pointing in the direction to his hometown. Others followed his lead and are still doing so to this day. Its worth a stop to wander through the forest and look at all variety of items - mostly license plates and town signs, but entertaining oddities can be found throughout.
Mary and I contributed our bookstore sign in 2005. It was a nice onewith a "town cryer" on top We thought the Forest would be a good place to leave it as we had given up the book business. We stopped by on our return in 2006 and found that some jack-ass had stolen it.
Another thing I remember from the first trip is that ten or twenty miles of the Alcan was paved on each side of Whitehorse - a welcome relief from the bumpy gravel.
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