At the million-dollar valley, the North Country collected three bombers from the US Army Air Corps in January 1942. Flying over the Far North required a unique skill set. But the Air Corps didn’t know that, and nobody thought to ask the bush pilots who did know. They were, after all, the Air Corps and the bush pilots were, after all, just bush pilots.
In the run up to WWII Canadian contractors had installed a string of airfields from Canada north to Alaska, located one of them at Whitehorse, Yukon. A month after Pearl Harbor, the US Army Air Corps tried to use the airfields.
LInk to another story “Marvel Crosson—Lady Bush Pilot”
On January 5, a flight of fourteen B-26 Marauder bombers took off from Boise, Idaho and confidently headed north. They flew to Edmonton, at the edge of the North Country, without incident. Eleven days later they took off again headed for the Canadian airstrip at Whitehorse, Yukon.
The pilots carried pencil drawn maps. They had no access to navigation aids. They had plenty of access to British Columbia winter. And they had no idea what they were getting into. Miraculously, eleven of the Marauders made it to Whitehorse.
Three others got lost.
By evening, low on gas, with no idea which way to go, forced to low altitude by blowing snow, they decided to crash land; began looking for a suitable location—not easy to find in the mountains.
At the million-dollar valley, British Columbia graciously offered a solution. The pilots gratefully accepted the broad, fairly flat valley covered with snow. Two of the pilots dealt with the snow by keeping their landing gear up, coasted onto the valley floor like monster toboggans. The third pilot, worried about landing speed, put his wheels down to dig into the snow. Gear up worked better.
The wheels did, indeed, dig into the snow—too deep and too quickly. The marauder flipped up onto its nose in a spectacular crash, injuring the pilot and copilot, leaving the rest of the crew merely shaken up.
A search the next morning failed to find the valley, but the next day a flight of P-40E fighters, also headed to Alaska, spotted the three planes. Bush pilot, Russ Baker, as grizzled and North Country experienced as Bush Pilots come, flew in with his Fokker, landed on skis and flew the injured men out to Watson Lake. It took three more days to get the rest of the men out.
Crews went in and salvaged parts from the planes, but the planes themselves became permanent residents of the valley, named “The Million-Dollar Valley” after the value of three B-26’s.