Vanilla Extract turned out to have unanticipated uses… Lt. Dewitt Howell told Donna Blasor Bernhardt about it as he recounted his memories from the construction of the Alaska Highway.
More on drinking vanilla extract
Howell commanded a company in the 97th Engineering Regiment and his company specialized in building bridges, culverts, and ferries. Howell and his men lived in tents and they typically moved every couple of days.
The intense pressure to complete the Highway translated into an incredible work schedule. Howell’s men worked 12 hour shifts and then returned to move their camp before catching a bit of sleep and returning to work.
Link to another Bear story “The Rude Bear”
They had little time for levity, but a head cook managed to find a way to provide some. He didn’t intend levity. He just liked vanilla extract and the way it made him feel. One day he turned up dead drunk and all of the vanilla extract in camp turned up missing. The first sergeant picked him up and dropped him headfirst into a fire barrel full of water.
The men also managed to adopt a black bear cub. They dubbed him “Dynamite” and he provided almost as much amusement as the vanilla extract drinking cook.
In the summer of 1943, the company moved north to Livengood, Alaska to construct a road to Nome, but they had completed just two miles of that road when the Army changed its mind and sent them back to the lower 48. From there they took ship for the warm and humid South Pacific.