Descending on Dawson Creek, British Columbia in the early spring of 1942, the Alaska Highway building soldiers of the United States Army came as a complete and very sudden surprise. Link to another story “Dawson Creek and the North Country” Trappers Rose Mould and her husband left their cabin one morning to walk their trap …
Category Archives: Dawson Creek
Explosion in Dawson Creek
Explosion in Dawson Creek? A year or so ago I posted about Dawson Creek, British Columbia, a tightly knit little community, isolated from the rest of the world by distance and geography and weather. The community had no idea that WWII had put them center stage in the war effort. The invasion of the US …
Luck Led to Romance
Luck led to romance, not what you would expect for a soldier on the Alaska Highway Project in 1942. But some men get way more luck than others. Donald Hall had almost blown himself up applying a torch to a gas tank full of fumes. He survived. That should have told us all we needed …
The Most Colorful Soldier
The most colorful soldier on the Alaska Highway Project, Chester Russel, came with the 35th Engineers to Dawson Creek in March 1942. Colonel William Hoge had come to Dawson Creek, in February. His country, suddenly at war with the Empire of Japan, its Alaska outpost in dire danger, needed a land route from the railhead …
General Hoge Fired
General William Hoge’s boots first crossed the platform at the Dawson Creek Railroad station early in 1942. He came to lead thousands of Army Engineers into and through the far north wilderness. He led them to accomplish the near impossible, to construct 1600 miles of road through some of the most unforgiving terrain on …
The Couple Lives Through an Explosion in Dawson Creek
The couple, Lucky Donald Hall and his new wife, Zellma, moved into an apartment in Dawson Creek—a one bedroom, furnished with a bed and a footlocker. The lovebirds lived there very happily until spring. That, of course, means the spring of 1943, so the couple got to endure the great Dawson Creek explosion and …
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The Rude Bear
We can excuse a rude bear. They don’t, after all, attend finishing school. Roy Lee of the 140th Quartermaster Truck company would beg to disagree. More on Quartermaster Trucks Roy had passed a very long July day driving a deuce-and-a-half in convoy from Dawson Creek up to Summit Lake. The rough road and the long …
Precarious River Ice
Four separate trains hauled the 43 officers and 1230 enlisted men of the 35th Engineering Regiment to Dawson Creek. The last train arrived in late afternoon on March 16. Everyone confronted the Peace River. The First Soldiers on the Highway Colonel Hoge had flown to Fort St. John and set up temporary headquarters in a …