We can excuse a rude bear. They don’t, after all, attend finishing school. Roy Lee of the 140th Quartermaster Truck company would beg to disagree. More on Quartermaster Trucks Roy had passed a very long July day driving a deuce-and-a-half in convoy from Dawson Creek up to Summit Lake. The rough road and the long …
Tag Archives: Stories from History
Alaska Highway Churns Up Stories.
The main artery of the North, the great Alaska Highway churns up endless stories. Blogging Far North History Ron Brooks commented on a post that his father had worked on the highway. I messaged him, and we exchanged emails. Like so many of you, Tom has a treasure trove of information about his dad’s service …
Maternity Alaska Style
Maternity ward? A cabin in Eagle Alaska—in January. If the history of the subarctic north fascinates you, people who choose to live there especially fascinate you. The weather, the terrain, the geology, all downright hostile, draw utterly unique people who choose to live there because of the difficulty and danger, not in spite of …
Liard Hot Springs
Liard Hot Springs, four hundred seventy miles northwest of Dawson Creek, British Columbia and Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway, provided a thoroughly unusual experience for the soldiers who built the great Highway in 1942. More on the Soldiers Today it still offers an unusual experience for those lucky travelers who get to scratch driving …
Monte’s Legs
The story of Monte’s legs has Alaska all over it. Another unique Alaskan Life there is like nowhere else on the planet. It takes a unique kind of person to live there and love it. A few months ago, researching our work in progress, my partner and researcher, Chris, ran across a story that ran …
Food and, Inevitably, Latrines and Garbage
Food topped the list of things every soldier on the Alaska Highway in 1942 absolutely despised. Without exception, the soldiers hated their monotonous and dismal meals. Fresh food supplemented endless field rations, but only intermittently. One company of the 93rd Engineers actually had no cook stove; the mess sergeant made do with an open fire …
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The Road to Fairbanks
Richardson’s road to Fairbanks replaced Abercrombie’s trail to Eagle on the Yukon, but nobody replaced the Richardson Highway until the US Army Corps of Engineers, in a feat many had considered impossible, installed a totally new way to get to Fairbanks—a land route from the railhead at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. More on the …
Humble, Vaguely Malodorous Canvas
Humble, vaguely malodorous, canvas, on the Alaska Highway in 1942, supported life in bivouac. Canvas tents provided barracks, mess halls and offices. Men slept on folding canvas cots. Canvas “lister bags” stored treated drinking water. Canvas enclosures became mechanical repair shops. In canvas enclosures, soldiers transformed empty fuel drums into stoves, showers and bath …
Chickens by the Truckload
More about Dawson Creek in 1942 Delivering chickens? The number of jobs that had to be done to build the Alaska Highway staggers the imagination and most of them never occur to us. Leo Perra’s dad delivered food to the soldiers on the highway, and several months ago Leo commented to that effect on one …
Lt. Mike Miletich, Forgotten Hero
A true hero of the Alaska Highway Project, Lt. Mike Miletich has managed to fade into anonymity. Not fair. The ‘go to’ guy for the 35th Combat Engineering Regiment, Lt. Miletich turned up at every challenging point in their work on the Highway. He led, for example, the advance party to Dawson Creek in March …