Alcan Hwy

joe b. wrote:
Trailers tend to be harder on tires than vehicles. I find one spare tire for the tow vehicle and a mounted spare for the trailer, plus an unmournted trailer tire works for me. I much prefer radial tires all around and stay away from bias ply

I also carry a tire plug kit and a 12 volt air compressor, a Viair 400, with me on most trips anywhere we go. The only recent tire problems, 2009 trip, I have had was a rock punctured tire on the Top of the World road out of Dawson Town headed for the Alaska border with Yukon.

Great suggestions, Joe. We had two flats going the opposite direction on the TOTW Highway, but both were on the rear axle of the truck, not the trailer. We made it as far as Whitehorse on two plugged tires before we bought two new Goodyears at Walmart (Canadian Tire was next door, but was much more expensive). Interestingly, that Walmart's price was comparable to the same tire at Walmart in the Lower 48 when I later replaced the truck's front tires.

In Seward, we had a trailer tire with a nail through the sidewall right at the edge of the tread. But I hadn't brought an unmounted second trailer tire, as Joe recommends. Although I tried to repair it with my plugs and 12v compressor, it didn't hold due to the location. So, we had to buy a new trailer tire when we got back to Wasilla. A tire in Anchorage may have been somewhat cheaper, but we didn't stop there on our way out of the Kenai.

For tires on a trip to Alaska, if your current tires would be good enough to drive cross county across the Lower 48 or east to west across Canada, then they should be good for a trip to Alaska. Trailers tend to be harder on tires than vehicles. I find one spare tire for the tow vehicle and a mounted spare for the trailer, plus an unmournted trailer tire works for me. I much prefer radial tires all around and stay away from bias ply tires such as many ST tires tend to be, especially as OEM supplied on trailers.

I also carry a tire plug kit and a 12 volt air compressor, a Viair 400, with me on most trips anywhere we go. The only recent tire problems, 2009 trip, I have had was a rock punctured tire on the Top of the World road out of Dawson Town headed for the Alaska border with Yukon. Of course I had not taken my Air compressor on this trip. Also check the air pressure in your spare before leaving home, as I had not done. LOL

Prior tire problems would be a screw in a tire, noticed while getting fuel in Watson Lake and that station patched the puncture on the Class C we were driving.

Tires, like windshields, have been a bigger problem while we were living and now vacationing in Colorado than the years we lived in Alaska and our trips back and forth.

As mentioned by Joe along some portions of the (old) Richardson Highway route between Delta Junction and Fairbanks were known as the Eagle Trail, there are other portions of the old road that were also known as the Valdez Trail - along that route which still exists is unpaved surfaced roadway and is known now as the Old Valdez Trail well away from the Richardson Highway route of today, mostly located within the Salchaket area region.

I was inspired by Joe's posted 1962 picture of Fairbanks with a glimpse of the red and white Metro in the background, I couldn't resist of posting this similar car I took a picture of while on my most recent RV vacation in September 2015.

My third visit in Skagway at Broadway St., haven't been there in 17 years. :




I forgot to post an August 2008 photo in the thread with the 2011 photos earlier - showing the historic milepost 0 marker at the roundabout site in Dawson Creek :


Just beware the major road reconstruction for 2015 on the Alaska Highway has moved farther south as they were tearing up and reconditioning the stretch between Donjek River and a few kilometres north of White River.

The 2013-2014 major project recondition of the Alaska Highway from the border to Sanpete Creek was still holding up well as of last fall, but for how long before the road becomes frost heave rubble again, only time will tell in a short period.

Wow! I don't think the OP ever got his answer about tires for the trip. :)

joe b. wrote:
Also need to learn to use Photoshop, to improve the old colors. Sue assures me it is not difficult to learn to use, but it just hasn't become a priority to me, as is obvious. LOL

Colors are good enough to see that beautiful red & white Nash Metropolitan! Those were great because they were so small that you could almost warm one up with body heat. Well, maybe that would be hard in northern BC, but it was the first 2-seat "microcar" I remember (VW's had four seats).

I find the northern roads and the history of same, to be interesting. The Richardson Hwy runs from Valdez to Fairbanks and pre-dates the Alaska Hwy by many years. It ran from Valdez, where the miners, etc. got off the ships and headed north to the gold fields of Eagle, Circle and Fairbanks, passing through Delta on the way. Now when you look at a map, since statehood and the Alaska highways were given numbers, you will note that the Richardson Hwy is Hwy 4 from Valdez to Delta, then changes to Hwy 2, same as the Alaska Hwy portion in Alaska. So at the time of statehood and the numbering of the highways, the part from Delta to Fairbanks was considered to be part of the Alaska Hwy and given the same number, Hwy 2.

So then not too many years back Delta decided they were the end of the Alaska Hwy and put up the sign, shown by sue above and claimed the Richardson was already there, at the time the Alaska Hwy/Alcan hwy, was finished, so to speak, in 1942. The Richardson or at least parts of it were known as the Eagle Trail in the early mining days as that was it's final destination.

There was an very good article in the recent Motorhome Magazine about the early roadhouses on the route north out of Valdez. Well worth a read if you haven't seen the article. Of course most of the old roadhouses are just piles of rubble these days but still fun to prowl around and take a few photos of the remains. Some are still functioning, others are in the same place with the same name but operating in a newer building.



This is a photo I took of the sign in Fairbanks in 1962, on my first driving trip. Don't know if sue has any of her dad's photos of the same marker. She would have only been 4 years old at the time this was taken. Ah to be so young. LOL The sign is reversed in this scanned image. I took it on a 35mm slide and when I copied it to digital .jpg it got flipped. Some day I need to go through my boxes of slides and see if I can find this one and re-scan it. With boxes of old slides, prints and over 30,000 images on my computer, it is not a task I relish. Also need to learn to use Photoshop, to improve the old colors. Sue assures me it is not difficult to learn to use, but it just hasn't become a priority to me, as is obvious. LOL

The end of the road in Delta Junction, Alaska




In Fairbanks, they have this sign

Being very-very unfamiliar with the area, I didn't know Alcan and Alaskan Hwy are the same hwy. Hope to take it when we retire and go fulltiming after 1-2yrs of experience. Can't wait but need to retire yet first....

As a life long Alaskan who travels the highway into Canada every chance I get to visit with the fantastic Canadian's they can call it whatever they want, after all nearly all of it is in Canada.

Some the best people I know.
I have never not felt welcome in Canada.

Signs are like the Internet. If it is on the Internet it must be true. For many years Fairbanks had a sign proclaiming it to be the end of the Alaska Highway.

I think everyone needs to keep in mind that many things have an official name and other names for the same item that we all tend to understand. How many of us use official medical school terms to refer to body parts? Very few I would guess. There is often an official name, common used names, slang terms, both acceptable and non-acceptable and those not politically correct. I often wonder who gets to decide on politically correctness. No one ever ask me. Some folks seem capable of being offended by anything said or seen.

The use of the term Alcan is not a derogatory word that I have every been aware of like other words in our vocabularies. So I plan to continue using it along with Alaska Hwy to identify the road I am referring to at the time. If someone wants to get their undies bunched up over that, their problem, not mine.
The highway known as the Cassiar also has several names, Hwy 37, the Dease Lake road, the Stuart-Hyder Hwy but most often as the Cassiar. Before the Cassiar Highway was finished/connected, only the northern part of the road that went to the Cassiar asbestos mines was called the Cassiar. Then when the sections of road were connected in the early 70s, it became more commonly known as the Cassiar. I has noticed that Murray tends to use a name other than Cassiar when mentioning that highway, probably because he used to work at the Grand Duc mine out past Hyder, up near the glacier, back in BC and lived in Stewart BC.

And to think, we still have spring fever and cabin fever of the northerners to go through before RVers start reporting on their trips again.