11,000 Army engineers were given the arduous task of constructing a 1,500 mile road from Dawson Creek in British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska. Battling freezing temperatures, mud, and mosquitoes, the men performed heroically and completed construction on the highway in less than a year.
"Building the Alaska Highway" is a truly American tale. Still considered one of the boldest homeland security measures ever undertaken, construction of the Alaska Highway reflects the spirit of America during World War II.
INTERVIEW WITH PRODUCER/DIRECTOR TRACY HEATHER STRAIN:
I have to admit I was ignorant of the subject prior to watching your documentary. How much did you know about the Alaska Highway before you began working on the film?
I knew nothing about the Alaska Highway or the Alcan. It was a real surprise to me. There are people who I know who are peers of mine, who heard about it. Maybe they had an older brother or sister who, during the 60s, took a trip down the Alcan when it was still quite the adventure. But that wasn’t the case with me. It was a total surprise.
What drew you to this project?
Actually, American Experience approached me with the idea. The reason why I accepted the project is I really felt a personal connection to the material because my dad is a civil engineer. The firm he works for specializes in bridges, highways, and railroad structures, so I grew up hearing about road construction and bridges and things like that. Plus, he was in the Navy. I was actually born on a Naval base in Japan. He was what they call a Seabee, which is sort of the Navy’s equivalent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I thought this sounded like a good story. We’re African American and there’s that component to the story, as well. I just thought it was a good fit.
If you had not felt a personal connection, could you still work on a project like this?
I think there have been projects where my initial response has been, “Oh, I’ve wanted to do this for so long.” And there’s other projects where it’s like, “Well, I don’t know anything about that.” But I’m a curious person so yes, I have done projects where my initial response wasn’t, “Oh, that was so personal to me.” The thing I find with almost anything, once I start researching the material I’m into it. I think almost anything can be fascinating once you really start getting into the details.
How difficult was it to find engineers who were involved in building the highway and did you find that they wanted to tell their stories?
Yes, they did. For the most part, the men did want to tell their stories. I was really excited to go to my hometown, which is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We lined up two men in the area and then they backed out on us. But most of the guys really wanted to talk about it. Their story got sidetracked. It was an early war story and when they started the highway, we hadn’t sent troops to Europe yet. So it kind of became a triumph that was forgotten, as we say in the film.
Finding the men was a challenge. We spent the summer of 2003 calling all over the place. We had an army of interns who were on the job. One of the challenges of it was there were a lot of records that were lost. There was a big fire several decades ago and a lot of military Army records are gone. So it’s very difficult to find people. There are groups that still have reunions and so we were able to find people.
There was a challenge with the storytelling because a lot of times with a film, the major dramas you’ll have the people recounting those moments. But because we’re telling the story so late, many of the men who could tell us the story at a macro level are no longer with us, because they were higher up officers and they tended to be older. We ended up weaving together a story which is an on-the-ground story, which I actually think is quite moving.
Did anything these men said or revealed in interviews change the direction of the story itself or change anything that you thought you’d be including that you ultimately didn’t include?
Yeah, we were hoping to tell a story of the 95th Regiment, which was one of the African-American regiments. [They] built this bridge – the Sikanni Chief River Bridge – in record time. And there was a small photograph of the bridge that was built in Time magazine, and we were really excited about that. We were hoping to find men from the 95th who remembered the story and remembered the challenge that was posed, but we never found anyone. While we mention that the bridge was built, we were never able to really tell the story the way we had hoped. We were not able to find the men who were a part of it. I mean, these regiments had at least 1,000 men in them and they were separated into different platoons and different things, so I guess I didn’t find the right men to be able to tell that story.
