STORIES FROM NORTHERN CANADA AND ALASKA.

Horses vs Mosquitos

Horses struck the soldiers of the 340^th as a fine idea but not as a personal gift to Yukon’s mosquito population. The mosquitos thought that part up for themselves.

Working south out of Teslin, the bulldozers of the 340^th could knock trees down but not out of the way. Downed trees left an unacceptable pile of brush in the roadway. Soldiers had to scramble behind the dozers, cutting up the fallen trees and hauling the branches off to the side.

An idea dawned. They needed a team of horses. And some local Indians had a team to rent.

The soldiers’ plan? The horses would supply the muscle and the soldiers would supply the brains. And for a few days, the plan worked. The horses proved far better than the soldiers at dragging brush and logs out of the right of way.

Link to another story “Equal Opportunity Torture”

But the Yukon mosquitoes noticed the horses and formulated their own plan.

One night a strange sound penetrated the canvas walls of their tents. The soldiers sat up, rubbing sleep from their eyes. Was someone pitching horseshoes in the middle of the night?

It sure sounded like it.

They left the tents, went around back to investigate, and, sure enough, they found a game of horseshoes going on. Mosquitoes had eaten the horses and were pitching horseshoes to determine who got the harness.

Story about Yukon Mosquitoes

I don’t make these up. A soldier interviewed by Donna Blasor-Bernhardt for her book Pioneer Road, passed this story for truth.

I’m just passing it on.

Soapy Smith

Soapy didn’t work alone. Here’s the whole crew.

Soapy Smith came to Skagway to get rich—like everybody else in the Gold Rush years. But Jefferson Randolph Smith had no intention of mining gold. Soapy came to mine miners.

Link to another story “Fascinating Skagway”

A confidence man up from Georgia, dressing and presenting like a southern gentleman, Soapy took his name from one of his cons. Gathering an audience he would auction off bars of soap. Some bars he proclaimed contained a $100 bill. And, indeed, some lucky customers found such a bill in their soap, inspiring others to try their luck. The lucky customers, of course, worked for Soapy.

Soapy sold soap and ran other scams in Skagway, searching high and low for victims and getting a lot richer than any miner. Occasionally a victim caught on. Tried to get his money back. But Soapy and his gang ran Skagway, brutally enforced Soapy’s law.

On July 4, 1898 one man in Skagway had, had enough.

Frank Reid collected a posse and stood at the edge of the harbor, at the end of the dock. Soapy and his gang approached. As Soapy unslung his Winchester and strode toward the posse, Reid stepped out to meet him. The two men stopped, nose to nose. Snarling, Soapy brought his Winchester up. Reid grabbed the rifle barrel, pushed it aside with one hand and drew his pistol with the other.

The pistol misfired. The Winchester did not. Smith’s bullet hit Reid in the groin. Going down, Reid fired again. So did Soapy, but Reid’s bullet hit Soapy in the heart, and Soapy died instantly.

Reid lingered for a few days.

Life isn’t fair. No one remembers Frank Reid. The legend of Soapy Smith lives on.

Marvel Crosson—Lady Bush Pilot

Marvel Crosson flew airplanes in Alaska before any other woman even thought about it—flew co-pilot with several of the most famous Alaska bush pilots then, in 1927 earned a commercial pilots license and could legally fly on her own.

Thirteen-year-old Marvel, with her younger brother Joe, first saw an airplane fly at a state fair in Colorado. Both siblings decided on the spot to learn to fly. Six years later, in San Diego, they pulled it off. And they bought parts to assemble their first airplane—an N9 seaplane.

Link to another story “Mushy Spring Ice and Bush Pilot Bob Reeve”

Colleen Mondor, a reporter for The Anchorage Daily News, told Marvel’s story in the June 19, 2016 edition.

In 1924 a friend lured Joe north for a flying job. Marvel had no intention of joining him. She kept the N9 flying until, in 1927 Joe came home and persuaded her to climb on a steamer and head back with him.

At that time fewer than 70 women piloted airplanes in the United States. None of them had made it to the Alaska Territory.

Reporters heard about Marvel and made “Alaska’s Aviation Grocery Girl” and the “Pollyanna of the North” famous down in the lower 48.” One reporter wrote breathlessly, “She dares death to spread sunshine and scatter watermelons over the Yukon’s white wastes.”

In 1928 Marvel returned to California, lined up sponsorship and began setting altitude records, and later in the year she entered the very first “Women’s Air Derby.” Flying the derby on August 19, 1929 her plane crashed in Arizona.

Marvel died at 29.

The Crash Site

Two Books

Two books, We Fought the Road and A Different Race, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and your local bookstore will appeal to people who enjoy my stories. Christine and I wrote them.

An Epic project comparable to the construction of the Panama Canal, the construction of the Alaska Highway left behind a treasure trove of stories—funny, tragic, sad–every kind of story imaginable. Our two books describe the great project from the ground up–from the perspective of soldiers in the mountains, mud, woods, and subarctic cold building road. The world has enough books telling the story from the perspective of senior officers who figured out and organized the project from heated offices.

Our Article on Blackpast.org

The Empire of Japan, in 1942, threatened America through Alaska and its Aleutian Islands. To mount a defense, the army needed to get men and the material of war there. That required 1600 miles of Highway through the mountains of Northern Canada. The scope of the project and its urgency required seven regiments so with only four white regiments available the army reluctantly sent three segregated regiments—black soldiers led by white officers.

We Fought the Road, released by Epicenter Press in 2017, tells the story of the whole road but focuses on the 93^rd Engineers working through Yukon. A Different Race, released by Little Lands End Publishing in January of this year tells the story of the 97^th Engineers, building the northern end of the road in Alaska.

Racism made the experience of the 97^th especially difficult and culminated after they completed the road in a trumped-up charge of mutiny against 10 black men of the regiment. To set an example for black men the army officially considered dangerous if not disciplined effectively, a court-martial convicted nine of the ten and sentenced them to long prison terms at hard labor.

Link to a story about the “mutiny” “Ten Mutineers”

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 to know about his luck. If it didn’t here’s this.

Zellma graduated from high school in a Rycroft, Alberta, came a few miles west to Dawson Creek in search of a job, became a waitress at the Wings Café. When Donald’s buddy Bill took her to a carnival, and Donald met her there. Sorry, Bill. Donald and Zelma fell in love on the spot.

Dawson Creek

Donald admits that love knocked his head a bit out of kilter. Sitting down one evening to eat a turkey dinner in the café, he got so wrapped in Zelma’s aura that he doused his turkey with catsup. Said a friend sitting nearby, “I’ve never seen anybody put catsup on turkey before.” A dumfounded Donald responded, “Neither have I.”

He drank coffee one morning at the same location. Needing to pay for it, he approached Zelma at the cash register. On the way he rolled up his dollar bill like a cigarette, put it between his lips, pulled out his zippo and lit it. “She looked at me like I was crazy, and for a few seconds after I got the fire out, I thought I was, too.

In late August Donald’s luck led to the ultimate triumph. He bought Zelma an engagement ring, proposed and she accepted. He got permission from headquarters in Whitehorse, and on October 19 they married in Rycroft.

Dawson Creek and British Columbia Today

Maternity Ward–Alaska Style

Maternity ward? A cabin in Eagle Alaska—in January. Obstetrician and nurse? A young husband. New mother? The kind of woman who becomes an Alaskan.

If the history of the subarctic north fascinates you, people who choose to live there especially fascinate you. The weather, the terrain, the geology, all downright hostile, draw utterly unique people who choose to live there because of the difficulty and danger, not in spite of it.

Link to another story “John Hajdukovich”

Throughout the twentieth century, the prospect of free land has drawn people from the lower 48 to Alaska. During the seventies high wages from contractors constructing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline drew thousands. Most of those people turned around and headed back home as soon as possible.

The pipeline that took them there in the first place.

The ones who stayed became Alaskans.

A year or so ago researcher Chris talked me into signing up for a massage. Turns out the therapist grew up on her parents’ homestead near Eagle Alaska! For those of you unfamiliar with Alaska geography, that’s about as far north as you can get.

I didn’t get the whole story, of course. I got excited and talked too much. But I did get the story of the birth of my therapist’s big sister, her Mom’s first child, and the “maternity ward” in Eagle.

The Yukon River flows out of Canada and across northern Alaska on its way to the Arctic Ocean. Eagle sits beside the river just after it crosses the border. In January the snow gets deep and the temperature gets cold. Stuck in their snow bound cabin, the baby girl didn’t contact the rest of humanity for four weeks.

Eagle today

Scrapers–or Carryalls

Even a monster D8 struggled to pull the big ones

Scrapers or carryalls, in 1942 in Northern Canada the Army called them both. The big machines scraped mud and dirt, but the soldiers also pressed them into service to carry almost anything. The big machines, most from LeTourneau, made the Alaska Highway Project possible in 1942. This story consists of photos because photos tell it.

LInk to another story “Two Bulldozers in the Same Place”

It looks from here as though he ought to move.

Video of Letourneau Equipment from the ’40’s

Sad News

Sad news sometimes visits Stories of Northern Canada and Alaska. Sad news visited today. As of February 27, Millie Jones, the living, breathing heart and soul of Carcross, Yukon lives and breathes no more. Her heart and soul, though, will remain part of Carcross forever.

Link to another story “The 93rd came to Carcross”

I’ve shared Millie’s information and stories many times. In her honor, I’m sharing my favorite of those stories again today.

Millie Jones, born in Whitehorse, grew up in Carcross, Yukon Territory—about as remote a place as the world had to offer. People in Carcross ordered their groceries in bulk–had staples shipped to Skagway and then up to them by the White Pass and Yukon Territory railroad. Clothes came from the Sears catalogue. Millie shared the Carcross school with about 13 fellow students.

The United States Army ‘invaded’ Carcross in 1942. Trainloads of soldiers had passed through on the way to Whitehorse but one day, thrilling Mille and her friends to the core, the trains stopped at the Carcross Depot and the soldiers piled off.

Concerned that their little town had suddenly become a player in a global war, Millie’s elders installed blackout curtains. But the flood of soldiers from the United States fascinated them as much as it did their kids.

The first white men Millie ever saw were black.

Millie thought it wondrous strange to see the southerners from the States shiver in their coats during weather she thought fairly warm.

Mystery piled on mystery. Millie’s mother managed and cooked for the Carcross Hotel, and for reasons the local folks didn’t understand, the Army wouldn’t allow the black troops, in the hotel. Some of the black men came to the back door to ask for water and in time Millie’s mother took to serving them baked goods.

Some of the soldiers carried musical instruments—especially guitars. And the hotel had a piano. One day the piano got rolled to the back porch and one of the soldiers sat down to play. Some of his fellows picked up their instruments and joined him. A crowd gathered. Millie had never heard anything like the thrilling sound they made. Seventy-three years later, when she told the story, a wide grin lit up her face and her foot bounced on the floor.

Asked whether she remembered the name of the song they played; she didn’t hesitate. “Pistol Packin’ Mama”.

The jam sessions became a regular event, and one evening as young Millie carried a stack of clean plates across the kitchen, she heard the music start. She whirled to put the plates on a nearby table; missed; dropped the stack on the floor!

Mom was NOT happy.

We love you, Millie. And we will miss you.

Millie’s Obituary in the Yukon News

Relations

Relations between Canada and its tightly coupled neighbor to the South, generally but not always good, influenced the Alaska Highway Project in 1942.

Even today, the things we get up to down here don’t always leave Canadians, our oldest and best international friends, with a warm fuzzy feeling. And the things we get up to up there can leave our neighbors even less happy!

Link to a story about a tragedy that could have been averted had the American’s Asked

Canada attracts people up from the United States and we carry attitudes and assumptions north across the border. A famously friendly lot, Canadians don’t always challenge our mistaken assumptions. And they don’t take us to task for our attitudes. That doesn’t mean they don’t notice.

In 1942 United States Army troops stormed across the international border and commenced building the Alaska Highway through Canada’s territory, an unthinkable invasion under anything like normal circumstances.

Circumstances in the spring of 1942 didn’t remotely qualify as “normal”. Canada had been at war since 1939. Canada’s leaders recognized America’s vulnerability to a Japanese advance through the Aleutians long before leaders in the United States did. When FDR launched the Corps of Engineers into Canada, he did it with the permission of the Canadian government.

The Americans, an occasionally arrogant lot, more inclined to tell than to ask, tended to go where they wanted and take what they needed. They made mistakes they didn’t have to make had they been willing to accept advice. Old timers still chuckle about the bulldozers and other equipment buried in muskeg or simply abandoned along the way.

Sometimes the soldiers left Canadians angry and resentful. More often the Canadians chuckled to themselves at the soldiers’ willful ignorance and kept their advice to themselves until the soldiers decided to ask.

Relations between Johnny Johns of Carcross and the 93^rd Engineers created a local legend. Johnny signed on to help lay out the route through Yukon. And the soldiers took his advice. But Johnny’s friends and neighbors chuckled, noticing that the twisting, turning route of the road managed to take in all of Johnny’s favorite hunting and fishing spots.

Canadian Governments Official Take on Relations Today

Entertainer

Entertainer Will Rogers made America laugh through the Great Depression—not easy. But his brush with Alaska left no one laughing.

Rogers did radio shows, he appeared on other people’s radio shows. He wrote columns for newspapers. He appeared in movies. Sometimes he just made it up. But the consummate entertainer made people laugh.

Almost as famous as Will, his close friend Wiley Post didn’t entertain people. Wiley Post flew airplanes; flew them better than any other pilot alive. The first pilot to make a solo flight around the world, Post also worked on high altitude flying; developed one of the first pressure suits.

Link to Another Story “Bush Pilots in Canada”

And he discovered the jet stream.

When, in August 1935, Rogers decided to see Siberia, he couldn’t have chosen a better pilot than Wiley Post. On the way Rogers had socializing to do. When they stopped in Fairbanks, Alaska, Rogers “bummed around being the entertainer, making friends”—and of course he made Alaskans laugh.

He clearly liked Fairbanks.

When the duo flew away from Fairbanks, they aimed at Point Barrow on the Arctic coast, but bad weather forced them to land about fifteen miles short of their destination to get oriented. When they took off again, the engine died, the plane crashed and both men died instantly.

Will Rogers left his last newspaper column rolled in his typewriter. He wrote of his meeting with dog musher Leonhard Seppala who “is as identified with dogs as Mae West is with buxomness.”

Much of the information in this story comes from the book Fairbanks by Dermot Cole.

Cole’s Book