Bus service began on the Alaska Highway on June 21, 1943, when Western Canadian Greyhound Ltd. began a contract with the Northwest Service Command. To see a very large version of the 1944 magazine ad to the right, click here. In September 1944 the Greyhound contract was terminated and the army ran the bus service with 5 of its own vehicles.
In 1945, the US Army requested that the White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) begin a scheduled bus service on the newly-completed highway. Using 4 of the buses formerly run by the army, with the addition of 4 new Dodge-chassised "Pony Cruiser" buses built by Hicks, they began twice-weekly service on October 1st that year. The service was operated by the British Yukon Navigation Company, a WP&YR subsidiary. You can read the newspaper announcement of that new service here.
On August 5, 1965, the White Pass sold the last of their scheduled lines to Canadian Coachways, which then became the only operator of scheduled bus service in the Yukon. You can see Canadian Coachways' 1960 Yukon Yellow Pages ad
here.
Following the sale of their schedule lines, the WP&YR continued to operate a small charter/tour bus fleet as both White Pass & Yukon Route (for runs in the Yukon) and Alaska Hyway Tours (for runs in Alaska).
To see very large versions of all the schedules and other information below, just click on each image.
To current bus operators in Alaska and the Yukon.
