The million-dollar valley collected a million dollars from the US Army Air Corps in January 1942—collected it in the form of 3 B-26 Marauders at Greyling Creek near the British Columbia, Yukon border.
Link to Another Story “Lend Lease and Canada’s Northwest Staging Route”
In the run up to war Canada had installed the Northwest Staging Route, a string of airfields from Canada north to Alaska. In case of hostilities with Japan the military could fly men and material to Alaska. A month after Pearl Harbor, the US Army Air Corps tried to use it. On January 5, 1942 a flight of fourteen B-26 Marauder bombers took off from Boise, Idaho and flew north to Edmonton without incident. Flying north from Edmonton would provide a vastly different experience.
Flying over mountainous, subarctic country required a unique skill set. But the Air Corps didn’t know that, and nobody thought to ask the bush pilots who did know. They were, after all, the Air Corps and the bush pilots were, after all, just bush pilots. On the 16th the marauders took off and headed for the airstrip at Whitehorse, Yukon.
The pilots carried pencil drawn maps. They had no access to navigation aids. They had plenty of access to British Columbia winter. And they had no idea what they were getting into. Miraculously, eleven of the Marauders made it to Whitehorse. But three got lost.
By evening, low on gas, with no idea which way to go, forced to low altitude by blowing snow, they decided to crash land; began looking for a suitable location. British Columbia graciously offered a mountain ringed valley, broad, fairly flat, covered with snow. The pilots gratefully accepted. And turned the valley into the “Million Dollar Valley.” Two of the pilots dealt with the snow by keeping their landing gear up, coasted onto the valley floor like monster toboggans. The third pilot, worried about landing speed, put his wheels down to dig into the snow.
The wheels did, indeed, dig into the snow—too deep and too quickly. The marauder flipped up onto its nose in a spectacular crash, injuring the pilot and copilot, leaving the rest of the crew merely shaken up.
A search the next morning failed to find the marauders, but the next day a flight of P-40E fighters, also headed to Alaska, spotted the three planes. Bush pilot, Russ Baker, as grizzled and North Country experienced as Bush Pilots come, flew in with his Fokker, landed on skis and flew the injured men out to Watson Lake. It took three more days to get the rest of the men out.
Explore North on the Million Dollar Valley