Whitehorse, Yukon Territory headquartered most of the Alaska Highway Project throughout 1942. Decisions coming out of the little city shaped the lives of the men on the highway. More important, the organization that controlled everything their lives depended on—from food and supplies to equipment and medical care—centered there.
In a contemporary newspaper article, Morley Cassidy compared the impact of the Alcan Project to that of the Gold Rush on the city of Whitehorse. Economically the Alcan had a far greater impact, but socially he found it wanting. “No girls. No liquor. No water. No noise. No dancing. This is a hell of a boom town.”
Soldiers packed the streets of Whitehorse. Jeeps and trucks, olive drab, marked with a white star charged up and down Main Street. Uniformed MP’s carrying wooden clubs kept order.
Canadians swelled the squatter settlements of Whiskey and Moccasin flats. Contractors jammed their offices in and among old business buildings and compact wooden native houses. Machinery, vehicles, supplies and equipment packed vacant lots. Morley Cassidy described it. “An isolated and seasonal community exploded from a sleepy river depot to a major military and construction complex.”
Lousy housekeepers, the roadbuilders.
The city of Whitehorse had barely adequate water, garbage and sewerage facilities before the Corps arrived. They dumped Garbage and other waste in the Yukon, or ‘on’ the Yukon in the winter, either way the river made it disappear. Sewerage went into privies, cesspools, septic tanks and poorly maintained tile fields. The Corps, multiplying the population and the demands on these primitive ‘systems’, turned Whitehorse into what Major Mendel Silverman called “one vast cesspool”. In response to widespread dysentery, authorities closed schools and theaters. They urged residents—and compelled restaurants–to boil or chlorinate water.
During an interview many years later, Lt. Squires’ laughed at one memory of Whitehorse. “I’ll never forget watching a D8 bulldozer tow an airplane down Main Street. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen”.
Enlisted men occasionally got detailed to Whitehorse; but, for the most part, the enlisted men in the field—especially the black enlisted men—rarely saw Whitehorse unless they got sick or ran afoul of army regulations.