In 2011, the Alaska Highway Community Society (AHCS), a not-for-profit organization based in British Columbia, accessed a generous grant from a the Peace River Regional District to support the nomination of the Alaska Highway Corridor as a National Historic Site of Canada, restart work initiated in 2005 to document First Nations stories related to the highway, and strengthen the link between heritage and tourism by identifying authentic experiences and stories.

Contentworks was hired to assist with the nomination and undertake related work on cultural heritage planning and tourism. Julie Harris managed all of the heritage work and most of the writing. The nomination was submitted in the fall of 2015 by the AHCS in partnership with the Alaska Highway Heritage Society (AHHS) in Yukon. After facilitating community meetings, workshops and presentations to local governments and First Nation, Julie worked with the AHCS to reposition the nomination from a focus on engineering works to a commemoration of an evolved landscape that tells a remarkable and unique story about the relationship between people and land over time.

Julie Harris