The legendary lady entered the world in Italy; came, at age four, with her parents to Seattle, Washington; grew up there; got married there. At age 23 she moved with her husband to Hope, Alaska.
The first winter, 1928, they trapped furs and Mary helped other trappers care for their sled dogs; earned puppies for herself. The next winter the couple took over a mining operation in remote Kantishna County. Summers Mary worked the sluice boxes at the mine. Winters she mushed supplies in over the snow.
The Kantishna area today
A 20 something girl from Seattle transplanted to a county so remote that even today it doesn’t have a zip code, learned to survive, to cope with deep snow and temperatures as low as 40 or 50 below, to work a mine, to raise and train and drive sled dogs. Picture a one room cabin, an outhouse, a primitive kitchen…
A typical homestaed cabin
And Mary didn’t just survive. She didn’t suffer. She liked it! She made her life there. She strode into this incredible place and an incredible life and never looked back. Even as I ask myself what on earth made this incredible woman tick, I realize the most incredible thing of all. In the North Country she was normal!
Proud, independent, unique individuals, no two bush pilots in Alaska came to that exalted status by the same route. The job required ingenuity, skill, a certain willingness to bend the rules, and, above all, guts. Training programs don’t turn out pilots like that.
At fourteen, Oscar Winchell rode a horse away from a farm in Nebraska to seek his fortune. His fortune managed to elude him in New Mexico and then in Arizona, so, at seventeen, he rode on up to South Dakota. In Redfield he found a wrecked plane; saved to buy it for $600 and get it fixed.
That, of course, left the problem of learning to fly it. But future bush pilots find creative solutions. Oscar befriended a farmhand who knew and explained the rudiments of flying–on the ground of course—and very early one morning he took off from a nearby pasture to see if he could apply the rudiments.
A somewhat older Oscar
He made it into the air then cut the engine and set back down. So far so good. He took off again, cut off and set down again. In the middle of a third takeoff/set down sequence he looked down and saw half the town of Redfield headed for the pasture. Apparently, he hadn’t scheduled his flying lesson quite early enough in the morning.
He hopped the plane over a fence and under a power line; climbed and headed north, a fully qualified pilot, at least as far as he was concerned.
A few miles on, he spotted a local fair on the ground and smelled opportunity; flew around long enough to attract a crowd then landed. He negotiated a deal for gasoline and then spent the day flying fairgoers around at $15 a pop.
His career as a pilot launched, Oscar didn’t look back. By 1929 he owned an airport and a flying school in Rapid City. Unfortunately, the stock market crash that year took the airport and school down with it.
It takes more than a stock market crash to keep a born bush pilot down. Oscar collected what bills he could, raffled off a suit and a shotgun and headed for his destiny—Alaska.
A Bush Pilot in uniform
Oscar Winchell, bush pilot. The rest, as they say, was history.
Oscar’s daughter told his story in her book about her dad.
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, more of it just a single lane path, weaving and winding crazily around and over steep mountains, through unbridged streams, through muskeg bogs. Abandoned trucks and equipment, empty oil drums, trash and garbage littered the entire way. They knew they still had a hell of a lot of work to do, but they had planned for that.
Then the new ‘head knocker’, General Somervell expanded the scope of the project. He wanted the road to go all the way to Fairbanks, he wanted a cut-off to Haines, Alaska, and he demanded a side project to build a road from Johnson’s Crossing up to the oilfields at Norman Wells. Worst of all, he decreed that the Corps would remain in the sub-Arctic North into the winter.
Travel would be possible–sort of
Thousands of men in the deep woods still sheltered in tents—totally inadequate for the looming winter. Frigid temperatures threatened already abused heavy equipment and trucks. And the jerry-rigged supply operation that had grown into place behind the troops during the summer wouldn’t work in winter. Truck drivers bringing supplies would confront a whole new set of problems when ice and snow re-entered the equation. Finally, morale plummeted as men who had dreamed of being home for the Holidays, realized that they would be spending the winter on the road.
Trying to remove the snow at Ft Nelson
An angry General Hoge had barely scrambled his staff and his subordinate commanders to address those problems, when Somervell fired him. His replacement, ‘Patsy’ O’Connor knew the problems he faced, probably as well as Hoge did, but he had the job precisely because he was a commander who danced to his boss’s tune. Somervell, who would be making plans and decisions for the project, knew virtually nothing of the realities of the North Country.
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 planet.
In February, the emergency assignment to build the Highway powered through the chain of command to the Chief of Engineers, General Reybold, who handed it to his assistant, General Sturdevant, who dispatched General Hoge north.
The Depot 75 years later
Elsewhere in Washington Major General Brehon Somervell ran the Construction Division in the Office of the Quartermaster General; commanding the frantic effort to build a physical infrastructure for the rapidly expanding Army. In March, even as Hoge launched his assault on the North Country, newly minted Lt. General Somervell, ascended from the Construction Division to overall command of Army Services and Supply.
At the end of August, the new ‘head knocker’ made his way north to visit the Alaska Highway Project. General Hoge bluntly disagreed with some of Somervell’s ideas for the project. Worse, he didn’t spare the time to wine and dine and be deferential. A thoroughly offended Somervell left Whitehorse determined to “amputate the project’s head.
In September, Army Services and Supply took control of the Alcan Highway project from the Corps of Engineers. General Hoge, and his boss, General Sturdevant, quite suddenly—and briefly—found themselves reporting to Somervell’s office of G-4 in the War Department—and to Somervell. A handwritten note attached to Sturdevant’s September report, noted, “Somebody has pulled some underground dirt which I can’t put my finger on.”
On September 4 Somervell fired them both; installed Hoge’s subordinate, General ‘Patsy’ O’Connor in Hoge’s place.
The new Head Knocker and his man O’Connor
More than any other man, Hoge had made the completion of the road to Whitehorse, the climax at Contact Creek, happen. But he wasn’t around to see it.
On September 12th, twelve days before the triumph at Contact Creek, Hoge regretfully relinquished his command.
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 a book documenting the Alcan project. Health problems, though, intervened; he never finished it.
But Colonel Twichell had a son.
Heath Twichell graduated from West Point in June 1956. He travelled as a young lieutenant with the 101st Airborne to Little Rock Arkansas where President Eisenhower had dispatched them to supervise the Arkansas National Guard in desegregating Little Rock Central High School in 1957.
In this interview Heath described that experience.
Heath took advanced degrees, taught at West Point, served two tours as an infantry officer in Vietnam, served on the Army Staff in Washington and completed a PhD in history. And in 1980 he suffered a heart attack.
He turned to his father’s research, completed it and wrote the book that made him the dean of Alaska Highway historians– Northwest Epic: The Building of the Alaska Highway.
The man himself
In his meticulously researched book, Heath did what no one had done before. He told the whole story, put it in historical context and made eloquently clear just how “epic” the project had been. For the past 25 years, Northwest Epic has been the ‘go to’ book for anyone interested the construction of the Alaska Highway.
When researcher Chris became mesmerized by the Highway Project she, of course read Heath’s book. Her copy has been highlighted, annotated—even weathered! It rode with her in the front seat of the truck throughout our first trip up the highway in 2013. She wrote more words in it than Heath did.
Heath became a friend, mentoring us through our effort to write our book, We Fought the Road. We finally met him in person at his Rhode Island home in 2015. At the conclusion of our visit, he smiled broadly as he carefully opened Chris’ dog-eared copy of Northwest Epic, heavily annotated and highlighted in a rainbow of colors.
And he signed it.
Chris’s version
Heath passed away on June 10, 2017. He was an officer and gentleman in the truest sense of those words. Our book, indeed the very direction of our lives, owe so very much to this man…
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 way from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Whitehorse in Yukon Territory.
On September 1st, the entire 340th —roughly 1,000 men—toiled along the 34 miles of road between the Lower Rancheria River and the Little Rancheria River. The next day the lead elements of the regiment stretched it out; moved 10 miles to just past the Upper Liard River crossing. From there Company A surged through September to Watson Lake and on to Lower Post. Contact Creek lay just 30 miles further east.
After the Lower Rancheria came the Little RancheriaAnd they reached the metropolis of Watson LakeAt Lower Post they were all but there
On September 24, an advance crew from Company E loaded a D8 with extra drums of fuel and pushed out ahead to the west bank of Contact Creek. They waited, hearing the dozers of the 35th coming through the woods, engines pounding, closer and closer, until they burst from the thick trees, lumbered down the bank and splashed into the creek.
The men ‘lost it’. From both sides of the little creek, wildly happy soldiers competed to see who could yell the loudest. The woods rang with profane argument about who got there first and who built the most miles. Major McCarty rode the lead dozer from the 35th and Colonel Lyons clambered up on his regiment’s lead dozer. The machines lurched forward until their blades touched.
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory headquartered most of the Alaska Highway Project throughout 1942. Decisions coming out of the little city shaped the lives of the men on the highway. More important, the organization that controlled everything their lives depended on—from food and supplies to equipment and medical care—centered there.
In a contemporary newspaper article, Morley Cassidy compared the impact of the Alcan Project to that of the Gold Rush on the city of Whitehorse. Economically the Alcan had a far greater impact, but socially he found it wanting. “No girls. No liquor. No water. No noise. No dancing. This is a hell of a boom town.”
Whitehorse’s Regina Hotel in quieter times
Soldiers packed the streets of Whitehorse. Jeeps and trucks, olive drab, marked with a white star charged up and down Main Street. Uniformed MP’s carrying wooden clubs kept order.
Canadians swelled the squatter settlements of Whiskey and Moccasin flats. Contractors jammed their offices in and among old business buildings and compact wooden native houses. Machinery, vehicles, supplies and equipment packed vacant lots. Morley Cassidy described it. “An isolated and seasonal community exploded from a sleepy river depot to a major military and construction complex.”
Lousy housekeepers, the roadbuilders.
The city of Whitehorse had barely adequate water, garbage and sewerage facilities before the Corps arrived. They dumped Garbage and other waste in the Yukon, or ‘on’ the Yukon in the winter, either way the river made it disappear. Sewerage went into privies, cesspools, septic tanks and poorly maintained tile fields. The Corps, multiplying the population and the demands on these primitive ‘systems’, turned Whitehorse into what Major Mendel Silverman called “one vast cesspool”. In response to widespread dysentery, authorities closed schools and theaters. They urged residents—and compelled restaurants–to boil or chlorinate water.
Whitehorse main street and the depot–in quieter times
During an interview many years later, Lt. Squires’ laughed at one memory of Whitehorse. “I’ll never forget watching a D8 bulldozer tow an airplane down Main Street. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen”.
Enlisted men occasionally got detailed to Whitehorse; but, for the most part, the enlisted men in the field—especially the black enlisted men—rarely saw Whitehorse unless they got sick or ran afoul of army regulations.
Comeal Andrews of the 93rd obsessed his grandniece, Judith Baker. From her much loved Grandfather, she heard about this brother of his all of her life. She knew he served in World War II and lost his life. But that’s all she knew.
Judith contacted researcher Chris through our website https://www.93regimentalcan.com and Chris helped her locate army records that told her the story.
In 1944, still with the 93rd Engineers, Comeal operated heavy equipment on Adak in the Aleutian Islands. On June 29 of that year, Comeal was standing between his earth mover and a parked army truck when a student driver rear-ended the truck, driving it forward into the earth mover and crushing Comeal.
Judith remembered playing with her brother on the living room floor—maneuvering toy soldiers and toy vehicles. Grandpa walked in as, giggling, they pushed two trucks together with a soldier caught between them. She never understood why their innocent play made her Grandpa so mad…
A base in the Aleutians
Judith had another story…
A fancy classic car parked behind a wall in Grandpa’s barn. She peeked at it between the boards and Grandpa shooed her away. One day, hanging out with Grandpa, she watched him make contact with a friend at a local junk yard; watched in shock as the friend put the fancy car in the crusher and turned it into a block of junk.
A few years passed and Judith, now a teenager, found herself travelling south with Grandpa to visit relatives in Louisiana. The road from Battle Creek, Michigan to South Louisiana is pretty straight—basically one long freeway. But Grandpa didn’t follow that route. On the way home, Judith, the family navigator, realized that Grandpa’s roundabout route avoided Mississippi.
When she asked him about that, he swore her to secrecy and shared the story of the family’s escape to the north.
Judith’s family, including Comeal, came out of Southern Louisiana. Sharecropping there in the 1940’s and 1950’s differed from slavery only as a legal technicality. Judith’s grandpa wanted desperately to get his family north to a better future. He had got them to Mississippi where they worked on two different plantations owned by members of the same prominent family. Those Mississippi planters kept them as firmly under their thumbs as Louisiana planters would have.
The “Mister” had a fancy automobile—a classic mid-1950’s gas hog, laden with chrome and graced with massive tail fins. One night a desperate Grandpa piled his family into the Mister’s car and headed north to Michigan.
Grandpa couldn’t risk getting pulled over in Mississippi.
In 1940 the tiny village housed about 130 Tlingit natives and a few white homesteaders and prospectors. Its name came from the Tlingit word meaning long narrow water. A Tlingit Elder, George documented his community in a brilliant collection of photographs reminiscent of some of the best depression era photography anywhere. You can see the collection today at the George Johnston Museum in Teslin.
On impulse, George would grab his camera and photograph whatever a neighbor might be doing. And he captured the heart and soul of his unique community, captured it just in the nick of time, just before the Alaska Highway changed Teslin forever.
But George provided far more to the community of Teslin than just his photography. George provided the “Teslin Taxi”.
Teslin had no roads in 1928, no roads even led to Teslin—from anywhere. No matter. George bought himself a brand new four-door Chevrolet anyway. The dealer loaded the car on the steamboat Thistle, sailed it down the Yukon River, up the Teslin River and across Teslin Lake to its proud new owner.
Teslin Taxi with Factory Color
To use the car, George needed a road. And George built one—a primitive four mile stretch through Teslin. Car plus road equaled “Teslin Taxi” and George provided rides for the curious at a dollar a head.
George’s four miles eventually became part of the Alaska Highway.
Selling rides to his neighbors took care of summer. In fall he painted the car camo and went hunting. In winter he painted it white and travelled up and down Teslin Lake on the ice—a Chevrolet fishing shanty.
Communicable diseases swept the native population of Northern Canada in 1942. And, when illnesses began to appear, the army and civilian physicians who came with the Corps offered their services. At first Canadian bureaucracy made that difficult. Territorial authorities, protecting existing private medical practices, required Canadian licensure for physicians treating Canadian citizens.
As illness spread, though, and the death count rose, this requirement languished. The Whitehorse Army Hospital provided services to Canadian civilians—except for those with tuberculosis (TB). Not equipped to handle TB isolation, the medics feared they would do more harm than good by increasing the spread of that disease.
Teslin Post
In the spring of 1942, Lower Post claimed a population of 150. Influenza killed fifteen of them.
The Trading Post at Lower Post
Carcross, the crossroads for the Corps in Yukon Territory, suffered epidemics of chicken pox, measles, whooping cough, jaundice and dysentery. Millie Jones remembered the RCMP piling her and her friends into a truck and delivering them to the Army dispensary for immunizations. The immunizations helped Carcross avoid an epidemic of diphtheria.
Carcross in 1942
Ida Calmegane, 14 when the soldiers came to Yukon in 1942, remembered the epidemics in Carcross. Her mother, a nurse, spent night after night sitting with sick neighbors. One woman lost her husband and two children within hours of each other. And Ida lost her sister.
