Front:
FAIRBANKS
30
1992
99709
29
Alaska Highway 1942
Back:
50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ALCAN HIGHWAY
First Day of Issue: May 30, 1992
First Issue Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
On September 25, 1942, crews working east and west
met in Contact Creek, British Columbia, to celebrate the
construction of the remarkable Alaska-Canada Military
Highway, better known as the Alcan Highway. The
“highway," little more than a muddy track through some
of the roughest — and most breathtakingly beautiful
country on the globe, was intended as a military supply
route to counter the anticipated invasion of the Alaska
mainland by Japanese forces during World War II. In only
eight months and 23 days, some 16,000 American and
Canadian workers carved a 1,520-mile route from
Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to Delta Junction,
Alaska, linking existing airfields across the north. They
fought off swarms of biting gnats, flies and mosquitoes,
blasted through mountains, slogged through the mud of
the bottomless muskeg and toiled through the long arctic
days to bring the road to completion. Opened to civilian
traffic in 1948, the road today is much improved and is a
popular route for modern-day adventurers in the North.
No. 92-43
First Day of Issue Postcard Collection
©1992 Fleetwood® Cheyenne, WY 82008-0001
Original painting for the First Day of Issue Postcard by Mark Schuler
Heelwood
