Credit: Alaska State Library Collection, Fred B. Dodge Photograph Collection, 1943, ASL-P42-100
One of the Black Engineers who broke the route of the new Alaska Highway, 1942
Black soldiers arrived in Alaska and Canada from other regions in the US to construct key sections of the nearly 1400-mile Alaska Highway. More of a rustic gravel road than a modern superhighway, the ALCAN was among the biggest wartime infrastructure projects in North America and precipitated Alaska’s position as a strategic location during and after World War II. Black soldiers composed 40 percent of the workforce and completed the most strenuous stretches of the road, including a bridge over the treacherous Sikanni Chief River in British Columbia. They did so without power tools or mechanical equipment. Temperatures in the winter fell to fifty below zero and exceeded 90 degrees in the summer.