Crooked Road: The Story of the Alaska Highway (review)

At a time when the federal government seems paralyzed by infighting and inaction, it is refreshing to reflect on an era when the government acted boldly and decisively. Such was the case during nine months in 1942, when the U.S. planned and built a 1,519-mile-long road through northwestern Canada into Alaska. In Crooked Road: The Story of the Alaska Highway, author David Remley uses oral history and archival research to make that ambitious project come alive and to show how longtime residents from the "old North" experienced—and were changed by—the road's construction.

Originally dubbed the "Alcan," the Alaska Highway was built as a swift response to Japan's December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. As Remley writes, "fear had grown in Washington that if Japan attacked the West Coast, Alaska, would be cut off from all but very limited supply by air and sea. For the U.S. then, a land line to the territory seemed absolutely necessary" (xii). The Army Corps of Engineers' plan, with help from Canadian workers, was "to cover the entire route with a minimum road at the earliest practicable date" (15) between Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and Fairbanks, Alaska.

Crooked Road vividly captures the frenetic pace of the highway's construction, as workers in the wild, remote region coped with subarctic temperatures, mountainous terrain, unruly rivers, and outdated maps. One military general naively suggested surfacing the road with blacktop, not realizing much of it would sink into mucky bogs and melting permafrost. Others successfully improvised, such as the officer who bought and converted yachts for river transportation.

The book's oral histories—passages interspersed within the narrative—aptly capture the efforts of two very different groups. One was Army soldiers with unlimited equipment, money, labor, engineering know-how, and a belief in technology. The other was old-time woodsmen, Canadian guides, and longtime residents who contributed backcountry experience, excellent instincts, and unfailing toughness. A passage from resident Norman Harlin shows how well both parties coexisted: "Actually, we got along pretty well—Canadians and the Americans. We had a lot of hard work and a lot of cushy work . . ." (168).

Poignantly, the book shows how the Alaska Highway served as a physical and philosophical dividing line, cutting through North America's last wilderness and spelling the beginning of the end of the old way of life. "There was a time when every man who lived in the North carried a belt knife," Remley writes. "Now only hunters and dudes do" (7). British Columbia resident Barney Streeper equated the road with "civilization," saying that it was impossible to trust strangers as one once could. "Break down on the highway now, and you leave it an hour and you come back and you can't even find the traces of it," Streeper lamented. "It's all gone. Civilization" (9).

Crooked Road works as an interpretive study that draws upon oral material as one of numerous sources. Among the book's strengths is its extensive use of primary and secondary archival materials, from correspondence to Army documents to articles and books. Oral histories complement these materials by providing an unvarnished, close-up look at the people who helped build the road or lived near it.

Remley describes his methodology, noting how in the 1970s he drove along the Alaska Highway looking for those "who had been there in the 1940s when the engineers and contractors cut and improved the road" (xiv). Clutching his notebook, pencil, and battered tape recorder, he visited villages and towns and sought out the mayor, priest, librarian, and newspaper editor. "Between them they knew every old resident within reach," Remley writes (xiv). He acknowledges oral history's strengths and weaknesses, noting that "Oral history, since it is the stuff of memory, is often unreliable as to the cold facts of an historical event, but unlike those cold facts, it reveals human attitude, a changing thing...