Picture Show: The Last Road North

Alaska’s Dalton Highway, more generally known as the Haul Road, covers 414 miles of rugged terrain from an area about 75 miles north of Fairbanks to the edge of the Arctic Ocean. It’s the only road in the country that reaches those waters, and the only one in the state that connects the south to the north. Winding along a sublime backdrop of Arctic tundra and comprised mostly of dirt and gravel the Haul Road was, until the mid 1990s, braved only by truckers working the oil supplies of the North Slope.

After moving to Alaska five years ago, the photographer Ben Huff found himself increasingly allured by the Haul Road. “I’ve always wanted to make a contemporary portrait of Alaska” says Huff, whose journeying has resulted in an arresting series of photographs that convey both the immenseness of the landscape and the solitary nature of the space around the road. “The road system within Alaska is so limited, so it seemed logical that it was a place to explore. And once I got up there, it turned into something completely else—so different from anything that I’d seen before. It became kind of an obsession, with or without the camera.”

What follows is a selection from Ben Huff’s “The Last Road North.” Click images to enlarge.

Atigun Pass



Dirk and Torsten



Finger Mountain Wayside



Morning, Coldfoot



Victoria and her dogs, Coldfoot



Chatanika River



Deadhorse



Steffan



Dead Spruce



Jeremy



Dan, Arctic Ocean shoreline


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