Dirt trail now a highway

By Karla Marsh

Fifty years ago, settlers looking to homestead in the Fort St. John area, followed a dirt trail up from Dawson Creek and crossed the Peace River by ferry.

Johnny Cox, left, shakes hands during a presentation in this undated photograph from the Fort St. John North Peace Museum collection. (Fort St. John North Peace Museum photo)

After the U.S. Army built the Alaska Highway in 1942, the settlers’ journey became a whole lot easier. The dirt trail was upgraded to a gravel road, an existing bridge was upgraded and a bridge was built to span the Peace River at Taylor.

Johnny Cox, who was 18 years old at the time, remembers how the improved highway helped to settle the land beyond the Peace. He also remembers meeting some homesick and lonely soldiers whose job it was to build it.

The soldiers were a sociable lot, says Johnny, and they had a camp at the present Mile 49 and another at Mile 56.

One day he was hauling lumber with a team of horses near one of the camps when he met a soldier who was about 40-years-old. Johnny’s horses reminded the soldier of his “little bronco”, back home in the States. “He was so homesick it was pitiful,” recalls Johnny.

The local people, many of whom had left their families behind when they came to homestead, understood the soldiers longing for home.

They made an effort to invite the men to whatever social events were happening at the time, like the barn dance Johnny’s family put on every summer at their homestead north of Fort St. John to raise money for the local Red Cross.

The soldiers who attended in the summer of ’42 had a great time dancing and visiting. “They appreciated being included,” Johnny recalls, “because their own homes and families were so far away.”

The soldiers, in turn, were very generous to the people in the surrounding communities. The men at the Mile 56 camp attended the Crystal Springs School Concert and — to the children’s delight — donated a big box of candy, a treat that was hard to come by during the war.

That Christmas, the soldiers also donated enough money for the teacher to purchase a war bond for each pupil at the school.

Trading with the locals provided other opportunities for the soldiers to socialize. Johnny still chuckles when he thinks about trading a small load of firewood for a large number of cigarettes.

Johnny is looking forward to celebrating the 50th anniversary of the building of the Alaska Highway in 1992.

Many U.S. Army veterans who were homesick on the trail of ’42 are returning to celebrate, too.