A box of rough planks, lined with Army blankets, carried Clyde Hudson home from Yukon Territory in 1943. He had come north, along with thousands of other civilians, because, at the end of 1942, the Alaska Highway, at best a rough draft, needed a lot of improving. When, in the spring of 1943, the baton …
Category Archives: Alaska Highway
Mushroom Ice
Mushroom ice opposed soldiers in British Columbia and Yukon. In Alaska mushroom ice defeated them. During the winter of 1942/43 commanders positioned regiments along the length of the brand new, rough draft of an Alaska Highway to keep it open for truck convoys from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks. More on Subarctic Ice Against daunting …
The Only Possible Route
How on earth did they find the only possible route? Canada Used the Route Before the Corps Drive the Alaska Highway, look left or right virtually anywhere along it. You look down steep mountainsides, you look up steep mountainsides, you look out across trackless swamps, you look out into hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles of …
Ghosts at Morley Bay
Ghosts would surround us at Morley Bay, but first we had to find them. In late summer 1942 the 93rd Engineering Regiment maintained a motor pool and a supply dump at Morley Bay, Yukon. On a lazy afternoon in 2013 we had come to find it—and the ghosts of the hundreds of men who worked …
Irony and History
No irony accompanied the fact that in early 1942, the Aleutians offered the marauding Japanese a back door to America. America’s leaders decided she needed a road to Alaska to defend it, and some of them realized the road wouldn’t do a lot of good if convoys had to dedicate the bulk of their …
Spiritual Guidance on the Alaska Highway
Spiritual guidance, Chaplain Brown’s specialty; difficult to deliver on the Alcan. Thousands of the Chaplain’s “parishioners” scattered along the length of the Highway, scattered over a lot of the most difficult miles on the planet. And they brought every kind of spiritual need to the Chaplain. His routine included marriage requests/investigations, problems, complaints, morale, hardship …
Problems loomed in October
Problems loomed in October What Extreme Cold Does to Equipment—and Beer Serious problems loomed for the Alaska Highway Builders as they moved out of September into October 1942. Their leaders, General Sturdevant and General Hoge knew that at best they had put 1600 miles of mess in place—some of it nearly up to pioneer standards, …
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 …
Twichell, Father and Son, and the Alaska Highway
Colonel Twichell commanded a regiment on the Alaska Highway Project. His son, Heath, immortalized the Alaska Highway Project. Racism and the 95th Engineers Colonel Twichell came to the Highway with the 35th Engineers in early 1942 then commanded the segregated 95th. When he retired from the Army, many years later, he started work on …
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Climax at Contact Creek
Publicity–the impact of Contact Creek In late August and early September 1942, the soldiers of the 340th and those of the 35th plunged toward each other, and toward the first great climax of the Alaska Highway Project, through the rugged mountains of the Mackenzie-Yukon Drainage area. Their imminent meeting would open the road all the …