We could have bypassed Dawson Creek, British Columbia, but we wanted to start our trek to Alaska at Mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway. 
We arrived early enough in the day to visit two museums and still have time to head to Dairy Queen. We parked the camper and walked the two miles into town ( had to justify the ice cream!). That gave us the opportunity to walk past many of the murals that are scattered around town.
The main focus of this town is it’s history with regards to the building of the Al-Can, the Alaska-Canada Highway- now just called the Alaskan Highway. As early as 1930 the United States government was toying with the idea of building a road through Canada to the Alaska Territory. The idea stayed on the back burner until World War II. In 1942 the U.S. was, of course aware that Alaska was vulnerable to attack because of it’s proximity to Japan. To drive that point home, the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands and apparently weren’t planning on stopping there.
The U.S. Military needed to get troops up to Alaska as soon as possible. Unfortunately, 1500 miles of wilderness lay between Alaska and the closest major town in Canada. Initially, the U.S. tried to use its existing Canadian airstrips to “funnel” U.S. planes to Alaska, but most of the planes didn’t survive the trip.
In the end, the order was given to the Army Engineers-build a road from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks Alaska- through 1500 miles of wilderness that had never been mapped, and over some of the tallest mountains in North America. Never mind the temperatures that range from 60 below zero to 90 degrees. And do it in less than a year. 
11,000 troops and 16,000 civilians worked feverishly to build this road and 9 months after they started, the final stretch of road was completed. The Alaska Highway House Museum did a great job of telling the story of the men who built this road and the tremendous obstacles they faced.
In 1948 the road was opened to the public and immediately, adventurous souls began making the trek to the beautiful, but still wild, Alaskan Territory.
The ride north was more challenging than a typical vacation, with services, including fuel, few and far between. So, in 1949 a guidebook, called the MILEPOST, was published. It literally lists, mile by mile, what you can expect to find along this ( and now, many other) roads in and around Alaska. Paul and I have the 66th edition with us.I’m really glad we stopped in Dawson Creek and got a better understanding of this road, why it was important, and the tremendous accomplishment it was to get it built.
