Paint Alaska Highway bridges in Yukon in winter? Quite a trick. First you filled a 55-gallon oil drum with paint. Then you added a quart of alcohol to help get rid of the ice crystals in the paint. Finally, you stuck an outboard motor in the barrel and ran it at speed for about fifteen minutes. Given all that, the paint might pass through the sprayers and on to the bridge.
Link to a story on “Timber Bridges”
After the Corps of Engineers “completed” a rough draft of the Highway, civilian contractors followed to upgrade it. Tex Givens came with one of those contractors to paint bridges in Yukon. Years later he shared memories with Donna Blasor-Bernhardt for her book Pioneer Road; and, trust me, he tells a heck of a story.
Tex and a large crew worked out of Coal River, and the crew had some larger-than-life characters.
Tex swore that just before quitting time every day a “crazy Swede would strip naked, then dive off the top of the support structure into the river below.” Consider that ice floes as big as refrigerators floated, bobbing and bumping down that river! The Swede would swim to shore, head for a sauna and a shower—then “collect a hat full of dollar bills.”
A makeshift theater in Whitehorse offered free movies and Tex and a buddy would often walk into town to enjoy one. “On our way, we’d pass a line of a hundred men… waiting their turn at two prostitutes working out of a little log cabin.” Taking advantage of the ladies’ services meant standing in line in temperatures an awfully long way below zero. And the ladies collected $50 from each customer. It strikes me that the ladies more than earned their money.
Over all, Tex remembered a tough but good experience, remembered the Highway with pride. And he thought often about “those poor bastards who had to push the original road through,” He meant, of course, the soldiers of the Corps of Engineers.
More on Alaska Highway Bridges
The project, Tex declared, “should be called the ninth wonder of the world.”