Peace of the Past: U.S. Army blew in with the blizzard

By Karla MarshSpecial to the AHN

Agnes Scheck remembers when the American soldiers came to town.

Photo from North Peace Museum, supplied by the family.

It was Good Friday, 1942, and there was a blizzard raging. No one seemed to know that an army was coming, they just blew in with the blizzard, unannounced.

Agnes was working at the Providence Hospital in Fort St. John at the time.

She was a nurse in the surgical ward and it was there that the Army doctors began to do their surgery.

They operated in the mornings from 6 to 8 a.m., Agnes recalls.

The soldiers stayed at the hospital for only a day or two. As soon as they were well enough, they were transferred to a tent hospital the army had set up north of town.

Most of the surgeries were related to accidents that befell the soldiers while building the highway, but there were also routine operations for appendicitis, gall stones and other ailments.

The Army had built a good size hospital of their own in Fort Nelson in 1943.

They asked Agnes if she would consider going there to be head nurse in charge of the operating room. She accepted the offer and made a rugged, 14-hour journey up the Alaska Highway to her new posting.

The camp where Agnes was posted housed 6,000 men and women.

There were construction workers, office staff, cooks, mechanics and every sort of person required to support the huge project.

Agnes and 11 other Canadian nurses worked seven days a week and were on call 24 hours a day. Agnes didn’t mind these long hours, as there wasn’t much else to do.

Sometimes when there wasn’t much else to do, Agnes and her friends would go for a walk, up the hill, behind the camp.

On one occasion, while out for a stroll, they noticed something unusual moving in the distance.

After going closer, they discovered the camp’s Irish cook, Patty, presiding over a homemade still.

Raisins and prunes from the cookhouse pantry were being distilled into moonshine whiskey. Needless to say, the still didn’t last too long after its discovery!

Agnes has fond memories of when the Muskwa Bridge went out, cutting supply lines to the camp.

Everyone had to eat army rations. Canned Vienna sausage, powdered eggs, powdered milk and powdered potatoes were almost all they had to feed themselves, until a small plane brought in a load of fresh meat.

Unfortunately, one plane load of meat amongst 6,000 people gave everyone only about a quarter of a pound of beef each.

“Just enough,” says Agnes, “To make our mouths water for more!”

Agnes received excellent recommendations from the Army surgeons for her work during the building on the Alaska Highway, and eventually she came back to Fort St. John to continue her life-long nursing career.

Agnes is retired now, but she will always be remembered for her contribution to nursing, as an Alaska Highway pioneer.