Digital Bob Archive

The Alaska-International Highway was the big, much discussed and much studied road project of the 1930's, but one that, unfortunately was never built. Or, to be exact, only part of it was built.

The proposed road was the brain child of Donald MacDonald and it was of considerable interest to Juneau because it held the promise of a possible road connection to the rest of the country. MacDonald, an engineer, had come to Alaska in 1914 as one of the builders of the Alaska Railroad. In 1928, when he got the idea for a highway to the States, he was superintendent of the Fairbanks division of the Alaska Road Commission.

The road he envisioned pretty much followed the line of the Alaska Highway from Fairbanks to Whitehorse and on to Jake's Corner. There it turned south to Atlin and pretty much followed the route of the old Dominion telegraph line, crossing the Stikine at Telegraph Creek and continuing to Hazelton. There was, it was reported, a good gravel road from Hazelton to Vancouver.

The route, MacDonald pointed out, would provide the shortest possible road from Seattle to Fairbanks, with 150 miles to be built in Alaska, 300 in Yukon Territory and 400 in British Columbia. Building feeder roads to the mouth of the Taku and the Stikine, providing access for Juneau and Wrangell, would be no problem, MacDonald felt.

MacDonald's idea was enthusiastically received at Fairbanks, which greatly desired a highway to the States. The Alaska-International Highway Association was organized under the sponsorship of the Fairbanks Commercial Club and sold stock at $4 a share to raise funds for promoting the highway. Endorsements of the plan were received from the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Vancouver Board of Trade, and Dr. S.F. Tolmie, the Premier of British Columbia.

Alaska's Delegate in Congress, Dan Sutherland, introduced a joint resolution authorizing the President to appoint a World Highway Commission to study the road and make recommendations. The resolution was scaled down a little in the Senate to provide only for an International Commission with members from the United States and Canada, but it did pass and members were appointed by both governments.

James Wickersham, who would soon succeed Sutherland as Delegate, proposed establishing a series of airfields along the highway route. In July, 1930, an automobile caravan from Seattle went to Hazelton to publicize the highway, and in August of that year an aerial survey of the route through Canada was made by two Junkers planes owned by Western Canada Airways. The International Commission met and estimated the total cost of the road at $14,305,000.

Had not World War II intervened, it is possible that the road would have been built along that route, and had it existed, with its airfields, by 1942, millions would have been saved. The Army needed a road to Alaska but it rejected the MacDonald route as being too close to the coast and vulnerable to Japanese bombers. Parts of the Alaska Highway and the Cassiar Highway follow MacDonald's route, but much of it is still roadless.