Northwest Epic: The Building of the Alaska Highway

In response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army in early 1942 began a colossal and controversial undertaking--the feverish construction of a 1500-mile gravel road through largely unmapped and rugged northwest Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska. Overcoming ice, racist attitudes, morale problems and other obstacles, the project was rushed to successful completion in two years at a cost of $500 million. Twichell ( Allen ), spurred by the unpublished memoirs of his father, who, as an Army officer, worked on the road, provides the most comprehensive history of the Alcan yet written. The author's powerful treatment of the project--combining the CANOL oil pipeline and Northwest Staging Route for airplanes in one dazzling road--rages from explorations in the region in 1789 to Sen. Harry Truman's star-rising probe as head of a commission investigating Army projects and Twichell's findings as he follows the route a half century later. Photos not seen by PW. (July)