Peace of the Past: Ontario couple found a home here

Written by Karla Marsh

Win Baker was a newlywed when she travelled her first mile on the Alaska Highway. Win, along with her husband and two brothers, left their home in Ontario after seeing an ad in a newspaper looking for workers to build the 1500 mile long road.

Photo of Winnis and Garnet Baker from Fort St. John North Peace Museum

When they reached the huge project, Win’s husband started work as a cat operator for a civilian construction company while Win set up housekeeping at a camp provided for the employees and their families.

The camp consisted of a group of large canvas tents heated with barrel stoves in the winter and opened up in the summer to let fresh air blow in.

But it wasn’t just the air that blew in during the summer. There were mosquitos, flies, and worst of all – dust. The dust was so constant that it settled on their faces while they slept and it was thick that it actually splashed, Win recalls.

Like the other woman in the camp, Win spent her days preparing meals, packing lunches and keeping up with the incredibly dirty laundry. Somedays she would catch a ride into Dawson Creek with the camp water hauler to get supplies.

At the time, the population of Dawson Creek had swollen dramatically as thousands of U.S. soldiers got off from the train there to begin work on the highway.

One day in Feb., 1943 when Win was returning from a trip to Dawson Creek, she passed some of the men from the camp going in. The men waved frantically at Win and the water hauler, trying to draw their attention to what was happening behind them.

“We thought there was something wrong with those guys,” Win said. “We never thought to look back. We would have seen the whole town on fire behind us.”

The fire that Win didn’t look back at was one of the tragedies that occurred during the building of the Alaska Highway. It began when a truck loaded with dynamite caught fire in a livery stable. The resulting explosions started a fire that engulfed the business section of town and with the closest water supply at Pouce Coupe, there was no effective way to put it out.

Blasts from the dynamite blew out windows in homes and stores. People had to use blankets and whatever they could to keep out the bitter cold. The fire took numerous lives and injured many more making the winter of 1943 one that Dawson Creek will never forget.

Despite some unfortunate occurrences like the Dawson Creek fire, Win said the construction of the Alaska Highway did a lot for the communities adjacent to it. While they were here, the U.S. Army built water systems for both Dawson Creek and Fort St. John and when they left, the army donated some of their buildings to the communities.

Win and her husband returned to Ontario after working on the highway, but they always longed to return to the Peace country. In 1962, they came back to stay. Win takes a keen interest in the history of the Alaska Highway, a history that she helped make almost 50 years ago.