Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mile “0” of the Alaska Hwy is located at Dawson Creek in British Columbia. The first 987
km /613 mi are designated as Highway #97.
Yukon Territory:
Crossing the provincial/territorial border into the Yukon, the next 929 km /577 mi are des-
ignated as Highway #1
Alaska:
At historical mile marker 1221.8 the highway crosses into the US and becomes Alaska
Route 2 for 322 km /200 mi to Delta Junction. This is the official end of the Alaska High-
way although Fairbanks, another 477 km /298 mi up the road is the unofficial end at histor-
ical mile marker 1520.
An explanation of these “mile markers” is required. Historically, mile markers were placed
to give travelers an idea of where in the wilderness they actually were. This is still the case.
We certainly depended on them because roadhouses, never mind towns, can be few and far
between.
Mile Markers
What you see posted at the side of the road are historical mile markers. These have become
less than accurate with time because since the day the Alaska Hwy was pushed open, crews
have been at work straightening and re-routing. Built over muskeg, the roadbed constantly
swells and contracts, crumpling the surface. Meantime, rain-swollen rivers wreck havoc by
tearing down dry riverbeds to demolish bridges, over and over again. It's a wild country.
So the highway is moved and re-moved and built somewhere else, meaning that the histor-
ical mile markers will not exactly match your odometer. Secondly, Canada, which as we've
noted is actually host to MOST of the Alaska Hwy, switched to metric measurements in the
mid-1970s. On the Canadian stretches the mile markers have been replaced with kilometre
posts.
Which is all to say, stay flexible. A mile is 1.6 times a kilometre and the mileage/kilometre
posts will be accurate enough to give you a reasonable but not precisely accurate idea of
where you are.
The route we followed:
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