The soldiers coming through Dawson Creek in March 1942 got cold, really cold. They would pitch a tent as best they could and bring in a wood fired Sibley stove. Fired, the stove brought warmth, but the warmth proved elusive. A soldier had to be within a foot of the stove to feel it.
And in a short time, the warmth melted the frozen ground, creating a floor of cold, slimy mud. To deal with the mud, a soldier created a ‘soldier’s closet’ by hanging his belongings from a string across the tent ceiling. Maybe then he could bundle up, crawl into his sleeping bag hugging his boots so they would be flexible enough to put on in the morning and go to sleep. While he slept, the cold frosted canvas ceilings and walls despite the best efforts of the stove.
And, of course, they had important requirements besides sleep. ‘Volunteers’ dug latrine ditches into the frozen ground—downhill from the camp and, hopefully, downwind. Miserable soldiers muttered that if a man didn’t do his business quickly enough, his urine would freeze on the way to the ground.
The cold didn’t go away when they woke up.
Ollie Willis, from Miami, complained that his feet “…damn near froze in those knee-high leather boots they issued us”. He recalled that “we lost no time hitting the winter road, ‘walking’ graders and Cats which had no cabs for protection from the cold. They sent us out on that trail with no mechanics-just a bag of tools.”