Acclaimed author Lawrence Hill researching new novel about northeast B.C.'s Alaska Highway

One of Canada's most accomplished authors is touring northeast British Columbia to research a new novel about the African-American soldiers who built the Alaska Highway.

Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of NegroesandThe Illegal,is planning his next novel to be set against the backdrop ofthe construction of the2,232 kilometer highway connectingDawson Creek, B.C., to the Delta Junction in Alaska.

These are complicated stories, [about] intersecting lives and intersecting love- Lawrence Hill

The road was built by 11,000 American soldiers during the Second World War, approximately one-third of whom were African-American.

• CBC Archives: Opening day for theAlcanHighway

The success of the black soldiers in Canada has been recognized as a key moment leading to the eventual desegregation of the U.S. Armyand prompted the the U.S. Federal Highway Administration to dub the highway "the road to civil rights."

"It's an incredibly dynamic story and it's very little known to Canadians," Hill toldCBC Daybreak Northhost Carolina de Ryk.

"I think it's one of those stories that's known by people in the community ... but other Canadianswho live in Newfoundland, as I do in the summer, or in Ontario or Winnipeg or Vancouver, it's a story they just know nothing about."

Hill has had the idea of writing a novel about the highway on his mind since 2012but is now making it a primary project.

• Lawrence Hill researches Alaska Highway story

He's spending the month of May traveling from Dawson Creek north into Yukon to collect facts and stories to help shape his narrative.

"It's a story that is fascinating, because it speaks so much to the experience of African-Americans, of white settlers, of First Nationspeople," he said.

"I have already met with one woman who descends from a romanticliaisonbetween an Indigenous woman and an African-American soldier who was passing through."

"These are complicated stories, [about] intersecting lives and intersecting love."

Hill said he tries not to let other people's expectations ofanother "great novel"affect him while preparing his next story.

"I try not to think about that because all it does is make me anxious," he laughed.

"It's just my job to write the best stories I can."