After World War II ended, the military need for the Alaska Highway declined. The U.S. Army handed over responsibility for the Canadian portion of the Alaska Highway to the Canadian Department of National Defence, Royal Canadian Engineers, in an official ceremony on April 1, 1946. The Canadian Army continued to call it a “military highway” to lower public expectations and keep maintenance costs down. The Royal Canadian Air Force continued to use the road to supply units and airports along the highway. However, the conditions of the highway were still far from meeting civilian standards and there were virtually no civilian facilities along the route.

Once the Japanese threat to North America ended, the U.S. Army had not spent money on improving the road beyond its primitive state. The Royal Canadian Engineers had to correct many problems, such as replacing some culverts with small bridges, providing drainage for the roadbed, replacing many of the short span bridges that had been damaged by floods, straightening the curves, and resurfacing almost the entire highway. To accomplish these tasks, seventeen maintenance camps were operating on the Canadian portion of the Alaska Highway by 1954.