Bonner and Bess Cooley live at the heart of Teslin, Yukon. They may, in fact, be the heart of Teslin, Yukon. More on Teslin Today A few years ago, we travelled through Yukon researching the book we would title, We Fought the Road, and in Teslin we met Bess and Bonner They helped us, taught …
Category Archives: Alaska Highway in Yukon
New Plan and new route
General Hoge’s new plan and new route would absolutely get the Alaska Highway completed on time or he and his soldiers would die trying. For more on Hoge’s Reassessment https://www.chrisdennis111.com/struggle-in-july/ On July 15, the point where the men of the 340th Engineers needed to meet the oncoming men of the 35th lay a very long, …
Struggle in July
With 1800 miles of Alaska Highway to build and the summer half over, General Hoge took stock. Up in Alaska the 97th Engineers had struggled to get in place. They got going and then ran into Mentasta Pass. In Yukon it had taken the 340th Engineers the first half of the summer just to get …
Boyd and his “Grand Canyon”
Work on the culvert at Boyd Grand Canyon began on July 11 when the young black soldiers of Boyd’s Company C crossed the Teslin River and moved three miles south and east to the north wall. More on culverts This canyon needed a very long culvert and a very deep fill. In his memoir, …
The Humble Culvert
The humble culvert—everywhere in our lives—serves an essential function. It carries water from where we don’t want it to where we do. You drive city streets, you walk city sidewalks… You drive or walk over culverts you don’t even noice. More on the Road Through Yukon Not remotely humble, culverts sprouted everywhere on the Alaska …
Teslin Post
Teslin Post never saw it coming. In July the 93rd Engineers came out of the woods, and the sleepy frontier village with about 130 inhabitants, mostly Tlingit First Nations, found itself dead center in the action. They didn’t know quite what to make of it. Excited by the sudden appearance of a hundreds of …
Slims River Bridge
Slims River threatened to stop the soldiers of the 18th cold in July 1942. At the southern end of Kluane Lake, Slims River feeds it with melt water from the Kaskawulsh Glacier. The road the soldiers built rounded the southern end of the lake, eight miles of deep muskeg and mud, to the mouth of …
Kluane Lake
Kluane Lake lay in the path of the 18th Engineers, working north from Whitehorse, and when they reached the southern tip of Kluane in July 1942, their relatively easy going came to an abrupt halt. The Slims River brings glacial melt water to feed the lake there, and some men of the 18th stopped to …
The 340th Gets Started
The 340th Engineers heavy equipment convulsed the Skagway docks again at mid-June 1942. Vessels bearing heavy equipment jammed in one behind the other. Colonel Lyons and his regiment had reached their starting point at Morley Bay in the nick of time. Read more about getting to Morley Lyons’ pre-positioned troops in Skagway, Whitehorse, and Morley …
Down in Yukon
Down in Yukon the action in June 1942 centered on the black soldiers of the 93rd Engineers. Their equipment arrived. Out on the road just one company, Company C, rapidly acquired nine new dozers, three carryalls, a towed rooter plow, a galleon road grader, a gas operated crane shovel… With each dozer came light and …