Evening star., 1941-11-26

few more weeks will be leading
airplanes blindly, but unerringly
through night and fog and tempest
and snow from Calgary to Nome.
Symbolically this was the most
tremendous event that had occurred
in the Yukon Territory since the
discovery of gold. Practically, it
was hardly less important for, while
the other stations are still silent,
the White Horse beam reaches ont
over the toughest section Of the
route. the taloned mountains that
claw through frosty cloudbanks be-
tween here and Watson Lake. 1t
provides help where help. is most
needed and takes the uncertainty
out of flying in region where the
crevasses are filed with the bones
OF venturesome aircraft.
In perhaps a month all of the
beam stations will be in operation
between the United States border
and the tip of Alaska. After that
no brand OF weather except ice
forming sieet will halt flying.
Dog Teams Help Planes.
The problem Of getting electrical
apparatus 10 the remote fastness
where operators and mechanics
await them is unbelievably difficult,
but Canada's Department of Trans
pOrtation promises that all installa-
tions will be completed by January
l. Some of the equipment is being
freighted in by plane, some by dog
team-a bizarre touch to the avia-
ton industry. But, at any rate, it's
coming in.
In the meantime bombers are
moving over the route eXpeditiously
without any beam. thanks to radio
weather reports and two-wav COM
munication between ground and
plane at all airports.
Roughly, the course Of the new
skyWay is northwest from Edmonton
through the Peace River country to
Fort ST. John. thence north to Wat
son Lake and west. with a northerly
drift. over the mountains to White
Horse.
There are government fields at
Edmonton. Grande Prairie. Fort ST
John. Fort Nelson. Watson Lake
and White Horse. $50 to 300 miles
apart, each a mile or so square.
Each is equipped. or will be equip
ped by next summer. with two hard
surfaced runWays 1000 feet or more
in length. long enough to accom-
modate the largest land planes so
far produced Each will have a
beam station. 400-watt radio
transmitter, and complete mete-
geological station.
All Of this has reminiscent sound
and when YOU listen to the engineers
at Lethbridge or Edmonton you
get the idea that the project is
just about the same as any reason-
ably good minor league airways sys-
tenn in the States After awhile.
however. YOU get out from the shad-
oW OF the statistics and after that
the resemblance doesn't seem so
close.
Offers Little in Novelty.
The transition from the familiar
to the unfamiliar is not too abrupt.
Edmonton, OF course. is a modern
city and the government airfield
there is one OF the biggest on the
continent. Grande Prairie offers
nothing in the way of novelty mas
much as it is a typical western
plains town on a railroad.
Airport building there in a nor
NAL season would be Just about the
same as similar job in Newton but
at Fort st. John, an old Hudson
Bay trading post. 532 miles from
Edmonton and so miles north OF the
railhead at Dawson Creek, you begin
to get small idea of what it means
to build even so elemental a thing
as fiat place in a roadless wilder
ness.
Trucking solved the problem at
Fort ST. John but not the sort of
trucking you'd see anywhere else.
The route from Dawson Creek to
this windy meadow was through a
60-mile stretch of rich and gluey
gumbo, which has few equals in
North America During the winter
it was trail OF axle breaking
roughnesS.
With the heavy rains OF an un-
precedented summer. it became a
bog which the trosts of November
have barely crusted over. A visi-
tor. who saw trucks stalled In the
mud on a downhill pull. hesitated
to think OF what the transportation
costs are going to add up to when
1t comes time to pay the bill.
And that was only the beginning
Two hundred and fifty miles north
lay Fort Nelson. A weird train of
caterpillar tractors and sledded
cabooses and trucks and road ma