The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1947-07-10
Alaskan Trim

A letter has been received from
the Filiatreau family describing
their trip to Alaska, which we think
will be of interest to their friends
in Eureka. The letter follows:
We left Eureka at 1870 Wednes-
day, June 4th. We drove to the
Canadian customs and there had
70 give a list of what we had in
our trunks. number of people in
the party; then told US in case we
lost any of our party along the
line, we would have to go back and
look for them.
Our first camp was above Fernie
at the buried city of Frank To
one who has never seen it, this is
quite a sight The next day we
drove to Calgary where we stayed
the second night as some of our
party had business in the city, from
there on to Edmonton where we
had to get our permit to travel the
is nice waeat farms and ygu can
see for miles.
Twenty-Five miles from Atha-
basca they blew out a head gasket
on the big truck and after driving
secure a new one. The same even /
ing we came to the Big Smokey
River after about 10 miles of new
and muddy road that we could only
make about 5 miles an hour on. {
We stayed overnite in the park /
al the Ferry; then they took the
big truck across first, then the |
pickup and the party. We had a !
few miles further of muddy road |
as it rained most of the forenoon /
before we reached Grande Prairie.
1t being the Kings Birthday moth
ing was open.
The next day we hit the check
station at mile l01 at the beginning
of the Alaskan Highway. Dawson
Greek is at the head of the High
way and nice place.
We stopped at the Lower Hudson
Bay trading post that is go years
old. Here, the Indians told us it
got go below zero last winter.
The musleg country all through Z
Northern Canada is terrible; no :
decent drinking water for miles and :
millions of mosquitoes. Fortunately )
we were prepared for this and had
plenty of good CT bed nets.
White Horse is a nice place but {
off the main highway. Here :
boats come up the'Yukon River and =
Ne saw freighter just as it came !,
n Gas averaged around so cents =
gallon, but here at White Horse Z
was 81 cents as it came by boat =
md at other places it is all hauled
" tankers. Also this is where the p
canadian Army Post is stationed y
From White Horse on there are y
OTIS of wild flowers. It is like a =,
ark on each side of the road =
There are large Army construc-
ion camps all along the Highway
least every twenty-five miles, but y
re were forbidden to use any of ="
lese as shelter or camp grounds n
v the R.CMP. r.5t
In thru Alaska there are. shelters "
sed as emergency shelters that "
ere available if we needed them.
Our eleventh, night outw camped -
Burwash Landing and here we ID
let Clyde Smiths family on their rs
ay to the States. We shared the 81
me camp that night and. had quite ~
visit Assys :"
Also here it was plenty cold as
e broke ice quarter inch thick W
/ the water pail in the morning.
On the Canadian side they check cg
again TO see that the seals on OF
ans had not been bothered or OF
at any surplus cargoes were taken Z GS
m and fhatp au' passengers were "
ere. About seventy five miles pf'
rther we reported to the Ameri- g.
p customs man and he was kind Z
ough to check us out after clos az
G hours. ou
Our next day brought us in to
lchorage just. after passing thru
1T Richardson our largest north
q army camp. There being no tiff
whatsoever we had to Iwh
mp out miles. Mi
They drove into town to find
about transportation of our !