Moldy Hay, the only bedding available proved better than nothing to the soldiers of the 341st Engineers. Actually, no one slept much, and their lives wouldn’t get easier anytime soon. They had slept on the train on their first night in Dawson Creek. The next day with the temperature below zero they constructed the camp …
Tag Archives: Fort St John
Deep Forest and Rugged Mountains
Deep forest and rugged mountains, 175 miles to the Sikanni Chief River and then 150 more miles on to Fort Nelson, confronted a traveler going north from Dawson Creek at the turn of the century. He travelled a path that had changed little from that used by the primordial First Nations. The forty-six miles from …
Descending on Dawson Creek
Descending on Dawson Creek, British Columbia in the early spring of 1942, the Alaska Highway building soldiers of the United States Army came as a complete and very sudden surprise. Link to another story “Dawson Creek and the North Country” Trappers Rose Mould and her husband left their cabin one morning to walk their trap …
Out of Dawson Creek
Out of Dawson Creek, one man, Colonel William Hoge, started the Alaska Highway Project when he left on February 12, 1942 in a car, driven by Homer Keith, his Canadian escort. Nearly a month later Lt. Miletich and his men took themselves out of Dawson Creek in a small convoy of trucks, headed for Fort …
Doug Bell
Doug Bell worked the length of the Alaska Highway from its earliest days. When I first met him, I thought him one of the most fascinating and funniest men I’d ever met. Doug’s memories made life on the early Highway come alive. His eloquent stories made it real. Doug passed away on April 18. His …
Pvt Russel and His Fellow Soldiers Didn’t Come Alone in March
Pvt Russel and the other soldiers of the 35th didn’t come alone to the Southern Sector in early March. Private Russel at Ft. Nelson On March 8, Captain Alfred M. Eschbach’s Company A of the 648th Topographic Engineers fell out into an overcast spring morning at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana—to be issued arctic uniforms. That night …
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River Ice–Chester Russel
River ice, the first big problem, confronted Chester Russel and his buddies in the 35th almost immediately as they moved through Dawson Creek and a few miles out to their real destination—Fort St. John. Just short of Fort St. John, the Peace River loomed. Short periods of early spring warmth softened the river ice. Crossing …
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Drowned in Charlie Lake
Men drowned in Charlie Lake. Lead up to Charlie Lake I posted about Colonel Lane of the 341st and his problem—getting a supply road up to Ft Nelson to support the 35th. At mid-May he thought he had found a solution—rafts up Charlie Lake would bypass the 12 most difficult miles of sucking muskeg. The …
Sick Soldiers
The Army made some of them sick. In March 1942 the 35th Combat Engineering Regiment had come first to the road. They flooded into and through Dawson Creek, British Columbia, out over the Peace River and on to Fort St John. The stuff of legend, their race against the spring thaw got them to Ft …