ROAD TO ALASKA

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20827, 4 July 1942, Page 3

ROAD TO ALASKA

ROUTE VIA ALBERTA MILITARY CHOICE “Eighteen thousand adventurers ilruggled'up the Chilkoot’s icy trails in ’98,” writes Richard L. Neuberger in the New York Times magazine. "Figures from the Federal Employment Service reveal that nearly that many men have gone into Alaska. to construct cantonments and other establishments for our army and navy.^V “This number will be considerably exceeded when the Alaskan Highway,, low under construction in the uplands >[ British Columbia, reaches the botin-* lary of Alaska, The road will link the United States to its Arctic outpost. It is being built by the United States \rmy Engineers. “Already bulldozers and logging crews are hacking through the Canadian wilderness, clearing a corridor for troops and equipment, w’hich may follow by next winter. This road will ret reinforcements to Fairbanks- iri tpproximately 90 hours instead of the eight days now required for the coyage by water.” Serving Air Bases Purely military considerations decided the choice of the route of the Alaskan Highway. Instead of starting at Hazelton, in British Columbia, and running north on the west side pf the Rocky Mountains, it begins beyond the railhead of the line from Edmonton, in Alberta, to Dawson’s Creek, in south British Columbia, and goes north", for a long distance on the east of- the Rockiel. Probably the major factor in this choice of route was that the road will serve the air bases established .by Canada at Fort Nelson and other pdints of its far north without prejudicing, its value as a United States land-link--to ' Alaska. ". ,s - “This location of the highway,” says the Christian Science Monitor, “has cheered up the Prairie Provinces Of tire Dominion and disappointed American and Canadian interests in the north-west.” Costing Six MillionsBeyond Fort Nelson the road will traverse the Wolfe Range and, turning ,in a westerly direction, will pass through White Horse, in the Yukon, which is already linked with the southstretching coastal tongue of Alaska, and on to Fairbanks. The total distance is nearly 1500 miles. The estimated cost is £6,000,000, For months United States army personnel and road-making equipment have been passing through Edmonton to the railhead, and the expectation is that new time records in construction work through terrain of the kind will be established.