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Barkerville is about 50 miles from Quesnel and was originally a gold rush town. It was the largest town in western Canada at the time. It has been recreated and is now a tourist attraction. It is populated by a company of actors that portray life as it was while the gold was available. It is high enough that on average, it gets snowfall once a month. The day we were there, it was rain. Oh well, we had a nice tour of China Town by the young lady shown, ate chinese food for lunch and throughly enjoyed ourselves.
The ALCAN was constructed, starting in 1942, in nine months. This was an engineering miracle. It was constructed by the US Army and civilian companies. The agreement with Canada was that the Canadian portion of it would be turned over to Canada six months after the end of WW II.
Originally, it was just a graded gravel road. It was constructed over a route that
allowed the minimum of effort in order to accomplish the task in the minimum amount
of time. Later it was turned into a year round road. Today it is paved over its
entire length, from Dawson Creek to Delta Junction, a distance of over 1300 miles.
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