A thousand pair of Army boots had tromped across a railway platform into northern Canada in March at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The second set of a thousand pair to tromp into northern Canada warmed—sort of—the feet of the 18th Engineers at the depot in Whitehorse, Yukon. The first troops to Dawson Creek When FDR …
Tag Archives: Corps of Engineers
Stoves in Tents
Stoves, homemade stoves, in tents? Subarctic weather demanded that each tent have one. Green Wood and Chester’s Solution The heat, of course, thawed the dirt floor into slimy mud. Soldiers festooned their tents with strings, ropes and rigging from which hung clothing, rifles, photos–anything the soldier did not want on the ground. Less valuable gear …
South Canol Rest Area
South Canol Rest Area looks like a normal roadside rest area, but on the Alaska Highway you know better than to expect normal. In this rest area you park among a collection of incredibly old, very rusty, and exceedingly cool abandoned cars and trucks. Driving north through Yukon Territory, between Teslin and Whitehorse, you cross …
Spinning Steel
Spinning steel blades shrieked as they sliced through trees harvested along the path of the Alaska Highway. Men stood above and behind the blades, pulling levers, guiding the logs through, and the spinning blades helped roaring trucks and dozers demolish the quiet of the deep north woods. Sawyers proved as essential to the massive project …
Muscle and Bone
Muscle and bone and sheer determination were, by mid-summer tearing a long Alaska Highway out of the subarctic wilderness. By July from Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Tok, Alaska, against all odds, the Highway began to emerge, and the modern epic caught the attention of the outside world. Reporters bestowed nicknames on the project. …
Chow
Chow is essential–Good, plentiful chow? Not so much. Swarming Road Builders Need Food and Supplies The soldiers who built the Alaska Highway counted their food as a primary source of unrelieved misery. In the early days, the soldiers ate C-rations. Everything else—milk, eggs, potatoes, and vegetables—came canned or powdered. Powdered vegetables tasted like cardboard. Monotonous …
Dumb Going Up There
Dumb going up there, the soldiers of the 35th learned. Master Sergeant King of the Motor Pool carried an old 45 to British Columbia; kept it in a holster at his side. With his 45 King could fix anything. At Dawson Creek a civilian warned King about muskeg. Chester laughed. “And old King, he… padded …
Covid Got You Stuck At Home
Covid got you stuck at home? Bored? If you liked or followed this author page, you will like our book, We Fought the Road, about defending America by Constructing the Epic Alaska Highway. Click this link to find it on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07172WHD7 or this one to find it on Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/we-fought-the-road-christine-mcclure/1162518241?ean=9781935347774 or …
Awards, Celebrations and Giving a Damn
Awards or commendations—interviewer Brown asked Chester whether he and the other soldiers received any. “You gotta be kidding. That war with them Japs over there, and with the Germans coming up.” Nobody paid any attention to roadbuilders in Canada. “We were the peons playing in the mud.” Bit and Brace Brain Surgery–More from Chester’s Memory …
Enlisted Soldiers like Chester
Enlisted soldiers like Chester fought the mud, mountains, cold and mosquitoes; did the actual work of building the Alaska Highway in 1942. The stories that pour from Chester Russell’s memory tell us what it felt like to actually do the epic job. The Most Colorful Soldier Speaking of Chester Russel In the last episode, Chester …