The Alaska Highway Today

A section of the old highway in Kluane National Park.

Credit: AHCS, 2012.

On 1 April 1964, the Canadian Department of Public Works assumed responsibility for the Alaska Highway. Over the following decades, the department launched a substantial improvement plan, targeting the worst sections of the Alaska Highway each year. Today responsibility for the Canadian portion of the highway is shared by the Province of British Columbia, the Government of Canada, and Yukon. Some of the funding for paving came from the US government through a 1977 agreement.

The Alaska Highway no longer resembles the original winding, hilly, and dusty road it used to be. It is a hard-surfaced, all-weather highway that is safely used by residents, truckers, and tourists. In some places, stretches of the original highway can still be seen and visited on foot, providing a glimpse into what it may have been like for the men who constructed the unparalleled engineering feat, the Alaska Highway.

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