KP’s, soldiers on what the army called Kitchen police duty, discovered the catastrophe looming ahead of the 18th Engineers first. KP’s had to dig garbage pits, and, as the regiment moved north past the Big Duke River and on toward the Donjek River, they found themselves digging in a vastly different kind of ground. They …
Continue reading “KP’s (Kitchen Police) Discovered the Problem First”
Completely crazy, Keith Ingram called the “masters of the air” from my story two days ago. And then he moved on to another group of completely crazy guys, a group he clearly belonged to, truckers on the Alaska Highway. A link to another story “Albert Herda’s Idea” “In the ‘60’s on the highway,” he reported, …
True masters of the air, bush pilots, flew in the subarctic north, and to do that they needed unique skills. Link to another story “Gillam Weather and a Legendary Bush Pilot” First, bush pilots needed to be true masters of the ground as well as the air. Suffering mechanical problems, needing to ground his plane, …
The Rapids started it all. When a would-be prospector on the way to the Klondike came by ship to Skagway and then lugged his gear to the top of the Chilkoot Pass, he still had to navigate Lake Bennet to the narrows at Carcross and then the Yukon River to Dawson City. The greatest peril …
Nine children ranging from 1 year old to 20 along with both parents made it to Anchorage, Alaska from Mobile, Alabama in a 65 Chevy van along with a homemade utility trailer. David Feldhaus started his comment on my Steamboat Mountain story with those words. His family made that trip in 1969. The comment …
The most unique contribution to Skagway atmosphere probably came from “Old Man Davis”. He considered bathing an unnatural activity, incompatible with good health. Residents knew to be up wind when they encountered Davis. Harriet Pullen brought her three sons to Skagway with the miners—sold them pies. When the miners left, she opened a small hotel, …
Angel of Cassiar they called her. A remote gold mining district in northern British Columbia, Cassiar attracted a party of 200 prospectors up from Nevada to try their luck. Nellie Cashman came with them, opened a boarding house, and set about prospecting just like the men. Strikes, Gold Strikes, in the Far North Unlike …
Every bit of the Alaska Highway ran through as rugged a wilderness as exists anywhere. Through the spring and early summer of 1942 over 8,000 soldiers of the Corps of Engineers struggled against overwhelming odds to get themselves and their machines into that wilderness to the path of the Highway. Right behind the soldiers came …
Rusty Dow, the first woman to drive a fully loaded truck the length of the Alaska Highway, did it in 1944. She drove the 1600 miles from Fairbanks to Dawson Creek in seven days, and she astonished every man along the way. Rough Draft of a Highway Rusty had been driving trucks down in …
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 …