Saturday, 23 January 2010

Worst Trip on the Alcan Highway - 1959

My family drove the Alcan from Alaska to Minnesota in November. I believe we were driving a car that apparently was not in good shape. Our first problem occurred in Whitehorse.
Whitehorse is where Lake Laberge is located and the site where the poem by Robert Service writes about"The Cremation of Sam Mcgee.

It was around 45 below so we stayed the night at a hotel and Diana and Kathy were very sick. They may have spent the night in the hospital. We had eaten in a Chinese restaurant and I being a very picky eater had some other kind of food. I remember the car being cold because we had to wire one of the doors closed.

The main problem with the car was we had several flats on the highway! Seemed a lot for the wintertime. As you can see in the above picture the road was paved - However in 1959 it was not.

A week later we were driving up a street in Minneapolis when we heard a clunk. The rear end dropped out of the car. My parents purchase their first new car that year. It was a 1960 green/white top Ford Fairlane.