The legendary lady entered the world in Italy; came, at age four, with her parents to Seattle, Washington; grew up there; got married there. At age 23 she moved with her husband to Hope, Alaska. Hope Today The first winter, 1928, they trapped furs and Mary helped other trappers care for their sled dogs; earned …
Tag Archives: Stories from History
George Johnston of Teslin
George Johnston lived in Teslin, Yukon Territory. George recorded Teslin on film. And George provided Teslin with the “Teslin Taxi”. Teslin Post In 1940 the tiny village housed about 130 Tlingit natives and a few white homesteaders and prospectors. Its name came from the Tlingit word meaning long narrow water. A Tlingit Elder, George documented …
Communicable Disease and Canadian Natives
Communicable diseases swept the native population of Northern Canada in 1942. And, when illnesses began to appear, the army and civilian physicians who came with the Corps offered their services. At first Canadian bureaucracy made that difficult. Territorial authorities, protecting existing private medical practices, required Canadian licensure for physicians treating Canadian citizens. Sickness from Outsiders …
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Circus Tent at Gulkana
A circus tent housed Iowa civilians in Gulkana Alaska in July 1942. They came in droves to help build the Alaska Highway through Alaska. Filled the big circus tent to bursting. More on the Iowans at Gulkana The contractors and their managers had never operated in total isolation, and Alaska threw them a curveball. Consequences …
War Machine Makes it Real
The war machine, the Japanese advance across the Pacific inspired the Alaska Highway Project. But the soldiers and civilians who went north to build the Highway, left the rolling catastrophe behind, struggled to keep up with news of the war. If few understood the complex geography of the Pacific, in early 1942 everybody understood …
Schemers and Dreamers
Schemers and dreamers, over a century and a half, created ways to travel and transport material through the great subarctic North—a few ways. This difficult piece of the world fought back at every turn. But over time a stream of adventurous; brave; inventive; and, above all, greedy schemers came to do battle with it. More …
Dropping It In
Dropping it to the soldiers in the woods, that’s how flying anything to them usually ended. If they happened to work near a lake or river, the incoming plane could land. But more often they worked in deep woods. The flying part worked well, the dropping not so much. Bush pilot Les Cook flew a …
Peeing in a Coffee Can?
Peeing in a coffee can, an art “Dusty” Hannon had no interest in mastering, led her to carry her very own chamber pot on the train to Carcross. Well, of course. Everybody in Skagway and in sister town Carcross, for that matter, knew “Dusty”, accepted her logic. Skagway welcomed and took its true flavor from …
Towns Sprang from Nothing
Three towns sprang from nothing in 1896, created by Skookum Jim and his partners. They created them from a distance, from Dawson up on the Klondike. But, fittingly, Skagway, Carcross and Whitehorse sprang up in Jim’s old stomping ground. Defending Skagway First the town of Skagway. A boom town of mythic proportions sprouted on …
Will Rogers’ Brush with Alaska
Will Rogers entertained America through the Great Depression—can’t have been easy. He talked on the radio, he wrote newspaper columns, he appeared in movies; and, whatever the venue, he made people laugh. It’s hard to find humor in his brush with Alaska. More about the Comedian Almost as famous, Will’s friend Wiley Post didn’t …