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 …
Tag Archives: Northern Canada
Since 1942
Since 1942 thousands of men and two governments have struggled to complete the Alaska Highway. It hasn’t happened yet. In the summer of 2017, men and heavy equipment worked over several miles of the Highway north of Kluane Lake. Waiting for their turn to pass through the construction zone, some drivers got out to …
Glaciers
Glaciers. As you travel north, the first one you see tells you that you have well and truly reached the subarctic region. You can scratch that off your bucket list. The Valdez Glacier It is summer, but a vast sheet of ice covers all but the peaks of the mountains towering in front of you. …
Barge “Bridges”
Barge “bridges” solved a major problem in 1942. Building 1800 miles of road through the towering mountain ranges of Northern Canada and Alaska required building around, through and over a maze of rivers. In a wartime emergency, working against an unbelievable eight-month deadline, the soldiers “bridged” the biggest rivers with barges or pontoon ferries. Real …
Marl Brown, At the Heart of the Alaska Highway
In 1957 the Canadian Army stationed Marl Brown on the Alaska Highway; put him to work fixing its new vehicles. But Marl fell in love with the old vehicles scattered along the road, rusted hulks with trees growing through them. The waste bothered him, so he devoted his life to rescuing them. Sixty odd …
Continue reading “Marl Brown, At the Heart of the Alaska Highway”
Russell Wesley on the WP&YR
Russell Wesley’s comment popped up on my post about the White Pass and Yukon Railway the other night, and it took my breath away. Russell got my attention with this, “When I worked on the Yukon and White Pass Railway in the early 70’s, we had no modern equipment. We had a radio that was …
Green Wood and Chester’s Solution
Green wood does not want to burn. Chester Russell and the soldiers of the 35th found no shortage of firewood as they gouged Alaska Highway out of the woods and over the mountains of British Columbia. But their rush north left no time to cut and stack wood, let alone let it dry and season. …
Bessie Gideon—the Most Persistent Ghost
Bessie Gideon refused to let mere death end her career at the Caribou Hotel. Her husband Edwin died in 1925 and never came back. Bessie died in 1933 and never left. Her friends and neighbors gave her a funeral and buried her in Carcross—but no one knows the location of her grave. Ghosts Haunt the …
Ghosts Haunt the Caribou Hotel.
Ghosts haunt the Caribou. Fabled figures came to Yukon Territory with the rush to the Klondike gold fields. They created the famous Caribou Hotel that centered life in tiny Carcross. Apparently even death couldn’t make some of them leave its history behind. The story weaves its way through John Firth’s book, The Caribou Hotel. In …
Sister Kathy
Sister Kathy joined our Subarctic sojourn on July 24, 2013 and brought a new dimension to my developing obsession with the far north. I emailed the story of my reactions and developing obsession to my family subscribers regularly and on July 26 I emailed this. Aunt and sister Kathy and Andy joined us two days …