Woke in the middle of the night from a peaceful sleep, John Frieze found himself staring into a flashlight beam and two frightened faces. One of the two men standing by John’s bunk, Quarfot by name, held up a hand with four fingers dangling free and draining blood all over the bunk. Next to him …
Tag Archives: Alaska Highway
The Grizzly vs. the Truck
Video of Bear Attacking Truck The grizzly stood erect at the back of the “small paneled Canadian truck” slapping it with is enormous paws, rocking it in every direction. Rounding a curve in his bigger truck, John Friese spotted the small truck parked by the side of the road, “shaking with movement in the back …
Mushy Spring Ice and Bush Pilot Bob Reeve
Mushy spring ice doth not a runway make. Famous Alaska bush pilot Bob Reeve found that out at Burwash. Willis and the surveyors were there. Link to another story “Stench and Reeve Airways” The Army occasionally hired Reeve to ferry personnel from place to place along the route of the Highway, and about two …
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Burwash Bounce
Burwash Bounce didn’t mean a thing to the Army, but it meant everything to Willis and his fourteen fellow surveyors. Link to Part 1 “Willis Grafe, Civilian Roadbuilder” Needing surveyors for the Alaska Highway Project, the Army blithely ignored the fact that most of Willis’s group of fifteen had exactly zero experience as surveyors. In …
One Night
One night, that is all Willis Grafe and his friends got as the guests of gracious Harriett Pullen. Willis had signed on to help the Army build the Alaska Highway and in early 1942 the Army intended to get him to where they needed him as quickly (and as cheaply) as possible. From the Pullen …
Equal Opportunity Torture
Equal opportunity torture. The subarctic north offered cold and mud and cliffs to anybody who challenged it. And, as the black soldiers of the Corps would learn when they came in 1942, the mosquitoes and the no see ums landed and feasted on skin, utterly indifferent to whether it was black skin or white. Link …
Nature, Dictator not ‘Mother’
Nature, a dictator, not a ‘mother’, rules the rugged, remote, austere, breathtakingly beautiful, and viciously inhospitable subarctic north. In 1942 the Corps of Engineers had no choice. A land route to Alaska, an Alaska Highway, would have to span this portion of nature’s turf. Link to another story “The Only Possible Route” To this day …
Most Horrific
Most horrific event in recorded history, World War II has no real competition for that title. But horrific events challenge those who face them and epic challenge inspires epic response. The construction of the Alaska Highway offers a perfect example. The words, “World War II”, familiar, prosaic, have long since lost the power to convey …
Entertainment
Entertainment did not come easy to young men stuck in camp in the deep woods along the Alaska Highway. Edward “Whiskers” Frankenberg and his fellows found that getting bears to eat out of their hands definitely provided entertainment. Whiskers told Donna Blasor-Bernhardt about it for her book, Pioneer Road. Link to another story “The Rude …
Disaster Loomed
Disaster loomed in the back of a 2 ½ ton truck parked at the Headquarters Company camp at Big Gerstle, Alaska. A young lieutenant proposed to haul ten soldiers, Sgt James Heard and his squad, 130 miles in the back of the unheated truck. The day’s extremely low temperature, combined with the wind chill effect …