Tiny Carcross, Yukon. The soldiers of the 18th Engineers barely noticed as they travelled past and on to Whitehorse in April. In May the trains carrying the black soldiers of the 93rd Engineers, to the surprise and delight of her citizens, stopped in Carcross and discharged their passengers.
Link to another story “Carcross Met the Black Soldiers”
Long before 1942, trains out of Skagway headed directly up into the coastal range, negotiating two tunnels and two precarious bridges over the Skagway River in the first few miles. Just beyond the summit perched Bennett, British Columbia –one church, a few dilapidated cabins and a depot—and from Bennett the lake that shared its name wandered away eastward into the crags at the top of the Coastal Range, its waters, azure in summer, dark under the ice in winter.
Forty miles on Carcross nestled into the backdrop of Caribou and Nares Mountains. Rattling over a rusted swivel bridge across the watery narrows, the train groaned and clanked to a stop at the depot.
Matthew Watson’s general store, a small post office, the Caribou Hotel and Bar and, of course, the depot bordered the narrows at the end of Lake Bennet. Behind the depot towered the dry-docked old sternwheeler, Tutshi, easily the most impressive structure in town. Tiny St. Saviour’s Anglican Church stood behind the depot, the slopes of Nares and Caribou mountains dwarfing its steeple.
The little town existed to serve the tourists and hunters who bivouacked at the Caribou Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in the territory, during the short summers.
Outsiders came to experience the famous old gold rush town, to hunt the animals of the North Country, or both. At the Caribou, they slept, ate and enjoyed the talents of Polly the parrot who sang operatic arias and offered a running commentary in the form of truly colorful and creative profanity. Polly, “the oldest, meanest, ugliest, dirtiest bird north of the 60th parallel” had been in Carcross since Gold Rush days.
A local businessman named Simmons owned and operated Northern Airways out of Carcross and several bush pilots, including the famous Les Cook, based at his airstrip.
Johnnie Johns led hunting parties to bear, sheep and caribou.
In 1942 Carcross boasted not one, but two schools. A small school in town educated a few white children. Just out of town near Choutla Lake, the Indian Residential School educated First Nations. The Indian school building had burned in 1939, but the school itself lived on in available log cabins, houses and an old warehouse.
That was the Carcross that awaited the men of the 93rd.