The North-West Staging Route

(Part Two brought the writer by air from Namao to Whitehorse, and then by road to R.C.A.F. Detachment Aishihik.—Editor.)

After lunch, the corporal who was second in command of the Detachment told me something of the unit’s history.

Construction began in 1942, when bulldozers, pulling supply-sleighs, drove a makeshift road along the Aishihik River. At Jamieson’’s Village, an Indian encampment beside Otter Lake, it was decided to build a barge on the spot and to take the men and supplies the rest of the way by water, up the fifty-mile long Aishihik Lake. The barge was pulled by an inboard engine which, in turn, was powered by a 4 h.p. motor. The water-trail ended at a camp of Siwash Indians at the northern end of the lake; and a gravel airstrip was laid out on a flat expanse of land immediately above the camp. To start with, two log cabins were built right by the shore of the lake; then, later, the British Yukon Navigation Company, which was carrying out the preliminary construction work, put up the control tower, barracks, and a few other buildings — all out of logs. ‘These were painted the rust-red colour they wear today. The two original log cabins were eventually moved up to the plain, where they now serve as “emergency married quarters”, supplementing the two regular P.M.Q.s.

I asked the corporal how the average Service family took to such isolated locations and the long winter nights.

“Most of the Service families that I’ve met,” he said, “enjoy the life very much. Of course, it requires a certain type of personality to be happy in the North. For those who are lucky enough to have it, though, this is a wonderful existence.”

He went on to tell me that the R.C.A.F. only sends up families who have no children or whose children are under school-age. “But”, he added thoughtfully, ‘the families without any always seem to acquire some fairly soon, and those with a few usually get more.”

There is a regular film-run in the North. Each week, one film passes down the line, spending one night at each settlement. It is generally projected on to a home-made screen like the one at Aishihik — a strip of canvas, painted white and attached to the wall. Since our car had brought the film in with us from Canyon Creek, our night at Aishihik was also film-night.

Later, I went over to the small canteen where the movie was being shown. A number of Indians had, as usual, been invited in to see the picture; and, when it was over, I met Chief Isaac, his brother Ed, and their wives and children. I asked the Chief if I might come down to his cabin and talk with him the next morning. He said that I would be welcome.

Chief Isaac, named after a sourdough of the gold-rush days, is 78 years old, and he has lived by Aishihik Lake all his life. In the winter he tends a trap-line, and in the summer he fishes for a living. I asked him when he had seen his first aeroplane. His eyes lit up as he replied:

“In 1929 we have cruel winter. Trapping poor, cold and snow so much they keep us all the time inside our cabins. I send one man by dog-sled to Whitehorse to ask for food. One or two weeks later comes wonderful buzzing in the air. Iron goose lands on skis in middle of snow-storm, and two M.P.s climb out. ..”

Unfortunately for my vision of gallant politicos risking their lives for their constituents, the Chief’s next few sentences revealed the fact that “M.P.” was his term for “Mounty”.

Presently he went on to tell me about a certain winter day in 1951. It had been another cruel winter, and the Chief was sledding to Burwash Landing for supplies. Just as he was crossing Sekulmun Lake, a little west of Aishihik, a twin-engined aircraft flew low over his head through the blizzard. A short while later he heard a crash. The Chief proceeded in the direction of the sound, which had seemed to come from Sekulmun Mountain. There he found a fresh landslide, and at the foot of the slide lay ten dead wild sheep, which appeared either to have been tumbled by the avalanche or to have been hit by an aircraft. Seeing no other signs of a ’plane, he hurried on to report to the R.C.M.P. Two policemen come to investigate, but they too found nothing. They told Chief Isaac about a C-54 which had been reported missing that day, while taking troops and their families home for Christmas — but, they added, a C-54 has four engines. To this day neither the C-54 nor the unidentified aircraft reported by the Chief has been found.

While on the subject of Indians, I should mention that nowadays the R.C.AF. keeps a watchful eye on the Siwash tribe, supplying its members with medical assistance and, in emergencies, with food. The road over which we travelled, and over which most of the supplies reach these isolated people, is washed out every spring when the glaciers melt; and, during this period, much-needed supplies are flown in from Whitehorse.

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When we drove out again towards the Alaska Highway, the rain had stopped and the trail had dried up enough to make the trip more enjoyable. As we skirted Aishihik Lake, I recalled the story of a rather irregular flight that “Packie” MacFarlane* had told me about while, I was in Edmonton. at one point early in the last war, he and Ted Holmes** were in Fairbanks, Alaska. They wished to take off for Anchorage, but they had warned by the tower that the weather between the two points was poor. At length, since their mission was fairly urgent, they decided to go anyway.

They followed the railroad tracks which join the two towns, Ted flying and Packie poring over the map. Visibility was extremely bad, and the Conversation was entirely one-sided:

“O.K, Ted. Turn left for mountain in two minutes . . . about fifteen miles and the tracks go through a narrow pass… better get some altitude. . .”

They arrived over Anchorage without any mishaps, although they had only enough fuel for a few more minutes of flight; then they called the tower asking for permission to land. The reply came back: “proceed to Point One for landing.” With the fuel-gauge registering zero, Ted told the tower that this was an R.C.AF. aircraft and that its pilots had no idea where Point One was. The tower called back and advised them that, if they didn’t know the secret code, they couldn’t land at Anchorage.

It was rather like saying “You can’t be sick here!” to someone in the middle of a bilious attack; so Packie and Ted landed, did their business, and spent the night in an American PX (Post Exchange store). In it they bought silk stockings, sugar, and various other items which were pretty scarce in Canada at that time, and took off again for home. Over Northway they were told to give the code-word if they wanted to learn what weather lay ahead, so perforce they flew on in ignorance and eventually forced-landed at Aishihik because of engine-trouble. They spent a few days working on the engine in bitterly cold weather, their only protection from the wind a rough canvas lean-to. Then they flew on down the Staging Route to Edmonton.

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We had covered most of the road to the highway; we had passed Otter Falls, the 20-mile ’phone, and the hill of our historic push. Only one obstacle remained: a culvert which was on the point of being washed away by the stream that raced through and around the pipe. We got out of the car, placed beams and old boards over the rapidly disappearing ground, and drove over. Just as the rear wheels cleared our bridge, the earth beneath it dropped into the water. When we returned down the Alaska Highway three days later, we were told that the wash-out on the Aishihik road had not yet been repaired. Such is isolation.

After lunch at Haines Junction, we stopped for a few minutes at the neighbouring experimental farm, which is one of two operated in the North by the Federal Government. Agricultural possibilities in the Yukon are, it seems, fairly good. Vegetables grow well, and many species of flowers can be cultivated. The experimental farms are developing varieties of grains which will mature in a very short growing-season, and they are also producing new breeds of cattle from such hardy strains as those of the Scottish Hebrides. At present, of course, all farm produce must be brought in from outside, a necessity which results in pretty exorbitant prices.

It was getting quite late when we started our drive around Lake Kluane. Completely surrounded by towering snow-peaked mountains, every detail of which is mirrored in the green water below, Kluane is, to my mind, a far lovelier lake than any of those at the Rocky Mountain resorts. Mountain goats and Doll sheep abound on the encircling slopes: I saw many of them as we drove by.

All beds being spoken for at the Army Maintenance Camp at Destruction Bay, we passed the night at Burwash Landing, a settlement at the northern tip of the lake. Here there is a log-cabin pub. The proprietor, an eighty-six-year-old gentleman named Bert, sports a long flowing white beard which covers his knees. Bert came from the Old Country in 1896, answering the call of the gold-rush. While we enjoyed a drink together, I learned (listening carefully as the words made their way through his beard) that in the fall of 1927 he had been flown on a prospecting trip by Clyde Wann in the latter’s Queen of the Yukon, the sister-ship of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

The following morning we pressed rapidly on towards our destination, Snag. Snag’s chief claim to distinction is that on 7 February 1947, its thermometers dropped to 83.4 degrees below zero — the lowest temperature ever officially recorded on the North American continent. The rust-coloured buildings of the R.C.AF. detachment present much the same appearance as those at Aishihik, and an Indian camp squats near the airfield, beside the White River. In this camp may be seen the remains of Bill Blair’s Trading Post, which attained its business peak some years ago. Bill married into the tribe and is now considered to be its chief. While he and I, together with two Indians, Copper Jack and Tom-Tom, were out in a boat hauling in their catches, I learned that Snag was a busy spot back in 1913. That was the year of the Chisana Gold Rush, during which Bill James found $20,000 in one day’s panning. Gold was discovered about sixty miles up the White River from Snag, and it brought thousands of fortune-seekers to the area. Starting from either Dawson City or Whitehorse, they followed the Yukon River to Stewart City, whence a long portage took them to the junction of the Donjek and White Rivers. From here they proceeded up the White, past Snag, to the gold-fields.

When Detachment Snag was first started, the “cats” followed part of the trail which had been blazed by the sourdoughs in 1913. These bulldozers hauled the supplies in, but the first cat to reach Snag was flown to a small unnamed lake about three miles north of the site. There it was reassembled, driven down, and work on the runways was begun. When these were cleared, steel for the towers was flown in — “in old Daks”, as Bill Blair’s beautiful young daughter called them. Rose added that “some of the equipment was so large that they often had to leave the doors open and part of the cargo sticking out during flight.” She could not have been more than five when she saw “those mad flyers”.

Talk of the extreme temperatures at Snag made me think of the part played in early northern flying by the groundcrew. They were, it seems to me, a bit like the linemen on a football team. Every game, they play their hearts out; but, in the newspaper write-ups, it is the back-fielders of whom the public hears most. A mechanic frequently accompanied the bush-pilot on his flights, but I wonder how often the word “intrepid” was applied to him.

Actually, he often worked longer hours than the flyer, and under shocking conditions. Seldom were there any hangars, and in winter the oil was drained from the engine upon landing. Before take-off, hours were spent in heating oil and keeping blow-torches playing, somewhat hazardously, on the engine. In the summer, if the ‘plane was equipped with pontoons, the mechanic often worked for long periods half-submerged in the frigid northern waters. And, whether he was in water or on land, mosquitoes, bull-dogs, and black flies caroused unchecked upon his helpless body.

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The return journey to Whitehorse was uneventful. Just before we got there took a little side-trip to Takhini Hotsprings, the only swimming pool available to the personnel of the station. Here, in temperatures lower than forty below, airmen, and airwomen sport merrily in the warm water.

Back in the city, I called again on Mr. MacBride and resumed my perusal of his priceless historical scrap-book. It would, as I have stated earlier, be impossible even to begin to do it justice here, but the reader may be interested in a few of my gleanings.

The high plateau on which the airport is situated, looking down upon the city bounded by the Yukon River and “Whiskey Flats”, was used as a frontier golf-course and village parade-ground in 1920. In August of that year word was received that four D.H.4 biplanes wished to land at Whitehorse***. Volunteer citizens turned out to cut down trees and clear a landing-area 1,675 feet long; and, when they had completed their task, the US. Army Air Service’s first Alaska Expedition, led by Captain (later General) St. Clair Streett, flew from Long Island’s Mitchell Field to Nome, and back through Edmonton and Whitehorse.

From this time on many aircraft came and went from Whitehorse. In 1922, Prest arrived from Skagway en route to Siberia via Dawson City, but he cracked up near Eagle, Alaska. Then, in the years around 1927, Clyde Wann’s Queen of the Yukon I and II were familiar sights; and in 1928 Klondike Airways operated a Fairchild in those northern regions.

In December 1930, Captain E.J.A. (Paddy) Burke was interred at Atlin, beside Atlin Lake, at the foot of beautiful Cathedral Mountain. A veteran pilot of the First Great World War, he, together with his mechanic and a passenger, took off in October from Atlin to fly to Liard Post via Surprise, Gladys, and Teslin Lakes. They completed the trip successfully, but on their way back they were forced down by a blinding snow-storm, and the pontoons of their Junkers stuck in the ice. They left the aircraft in order to try to find a settlement. Forty days after the crash, the last twenty-three of them spent without food, Paddy Burke died from hunger. Emil Kaeling (the mechanic) and Robert Martin (the passenger) cached his body in a tree and continued on their way. Finally, fifty-eight days after the crash, the two survivors were found by Walsh and Wasson, two pilots who had spent two months flying ceaselessly back and forth over the suspected crash area. It was to Paddy Burke that Kathleen Keats White dedicated her poem, “The Northland Speaks”, of which I quote two verses:

Even at the last I gave diamonds of frost for his breath,
Exquisite crystals to garland the wings of his ’plane;
Blankets of pearl where they kept rendezvous with grim death,
Caught in the meshes of Fate and the strong hands of pain.

He who swept up from my waters as birds in their flight,
Or glided as gracefully as gulls on the crest of a wave,
Folded his wings now, at rest on the breast of the night,
Never his name shall depart from the North of the brave.