Urine, human urine, cured moccasins made from moose hide. Donald “Smitty” Schmitt didn’t know that when he admired the ones of the feet of guide, Johnny Johns. When Donna Blazor-Bernhardt interviewed Schmitt, an officer in Company D of the 93rd, about his experience on the Alaska Highway project, he had lots of memories, but the smell of new moccasins stood out.
Link to Anther story “Johnny Johns from Paul Erlam’s Memory”
At Camp Claiborne in Louisiana an adjutant in the 93rd asked whether he had a wife and a car. He had both. The adjutant answered, “Sell your car and send your wife home, you’re shipping out in two days.” A few weeks later he found himself living in Yukon Territory, sharing with his company commander a square tent with a Sibley stove, a table and two chairs and what belongings they had brought with them.
The soldiers of the 93rd worked between Whitehorse and Teslin Lake and they encountered all the usual problems and obstacles—vehicles stuck in mud, cold temperatures that could leave two inches of frost on the inside wall of the tent. “Once it got to 68 below zero and my shaving mug froze before I finished shaving.”
The road behind them, the men of the 93rd transferred to the Aleutians where they worked on airfields through the rest of the war.
But in Yukon, Schmitt had the privilege of working with the famous hunting guide from Carcross—Johnny Johns who wore the impressive pair of moccasins. And Johns got his wife to make Schmitt a pair cured, of course, with human urine.
He, “found it prudent to leave them on top of the tent during the day to let them air out.”
Well it works and boots were relatively rare to come by.
Indeed. And the smell is temporary