Alaska Highway Photographs & Documents
This collection consists of photographs and related ephemera collected by Jim Powell, an American from Robbinsdale, Minnesota, who worked on the Alaska Highway in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska from 1942–1943. The majority of Powell’s photographs were taken in British Columbia in 1942 and 1943 while he was working for Art Bolier Contractor and the Okes Construction Company. Powell’s son and daughter-in-law organized and documented this extensive collection of his photographs and ephemera, which includes materials such as maps of the Alaska Highway route, a copy of the promotional illustrated booklet, The Alaska Highway: A Saga of the North (published in Edmonton in 1943), salvaged sheets from old Hudson’s Bay Company accounting ledgers, and numerous receipts, bills of sale, and other construction business documents.
Getting started: Most student researchers will want to employ a series of keyword searches in the University of Alberta Library catalogue in order to find relevant published materials in both print and digital formats, in all U of A library locations and collections. To explore the archival materials in this collection online, researchers can use the Internet Archive, which in this case also functions as a kind of a finding aid for those who wish to examine the print originals. For more information about research in the Peel library, see Finding and Requesting Peel Library Materials.
Collection Formats: 20th Century, Correspondence, Ephemera, Photographs, Postcards -- click to see other collections with this format
Photograph of a settlement along the Alaska highway (AH0007-001).
Photograph of a group of women on Alaska highway captioned: "First Chauffeurette on Alaska Highway" (AH0006-001).
Ledger pages from an HBC fort salvaged from old buildings during highway construction (BPSC_AH0042).
Photograph captioned: "Fighting forest fire Mi.89 Alaska Highway" (AH0002-033).
Jim Powell's drivers permit (BPSC_AH0041).