Hoge’s recon was revealing the breath-taking scale of the problems he and his soldiers were about to take on. Elsewhere, especially in Washington, the Corps of Engineers was convulsing. The chaotic storm of planning and planning again, of organizing and reorganizing intensified accordingly. The telephone lines burned with requests and orders and fingers bounced over typewriter keys trying to follow up—and keep up–with formal orders.
On the ground in Canada, the rugged country and the vast distances his men would have to work in and over would have overwhelmed Hoge—had he been a man given to being overwhelmed. He didn’t even have maps!
The only way Hoge could see the country and plan his effort was from the air.
Barely a month before the first troops arrived at Dawson Creek, planes were flying over wilderness and mountains shooting the aerial photos that would allow the Corps to plan a route.
The first of Ingalls’ troops, a quartermaster detachment of 5 officers and 125 men arrived at Dawson Creek at 1:20 am on March 9th. The troops detrained into a temperature of 35 below, a biting wind and six inches of drifting snow. They hurriedly began construction of immense, if crude, storage buildings and a refrigerator plant for food storage.
The troops could build the road only if they had supplies and equipment—lots of supplies and lots of big equipment. Back in the states, the desperate effort to procure the equipment and supplies was already pushing bulldozers, tents and winter uniforms northward. The National Alberta Railway (NAR) ending in Dawson Creek offered transport to the southern portion of the route. The White Pass and Yukon RR (WP&YT) from the fjords of Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, YT provided it to the middle portion. The port at Valdez, Alaska offered it to the northern portion. But dozers and tents and food supplies in Dawson Creek, Skagway, Whitehorse and Valdez were still a hell of a long way from the remote places where Hoge’s troops would need them.