The James W. Dalton Highway (, 2012 Visitor's Guide, also Alaska
Route 11 or simply the "Dalton Highway" or "the Dalton") is a
414-mile (666-km) road running through central and northern
Alaska. It is one of only two roads in North America which cross
the Arctic Circle (the other being the Dempster Highway in
Yukon, Canada). It begins at Mile 73 of the Elliott Highway
(Alaska Route 2) 84 mi (134 km) north of Fairbanks and ends at
Deadhorse near the Arctic Ocean amid the Prudhoe Bay oilfield.
The road passes through boreal forests, across the Yukon river
and the Arctic Circle, over the Brooks Range mountains, the
Continental Divide at Atigun pass, and finally traversing the
tree-less North Slope tundra to the Deadhorse and the Prudhoe
Bay oilfields near the Arctic Ocean. While travel up the
entirety of this road is quite an undertaking, the trip provides
many rewards in views and experience of America's Arctic, its
wildlife, and landscape. When oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay
in 1969, the state of Alaska ope