Oil
for Victory: The Canol Project
©
Murray
Lundberg
In
the latter half of the 1930s, Alaska and the Yukon were truly one
of the civilized world's backwaters. Although the mining output
from the region was quite significant, there was still an enormous
amount of empty, inaccessible country, and transportation facilities
were minimal. That situation, however, was to change dramatically,
and those changes would alter the face of the North forever. When
Japan attacked Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the United States
was taken completely by
surprise. The nation recovered quickly, however, and started making
plans to defend the North American mainland from invasion. On June
3, 1942, Japan attacked the edge of the continental U.S., launching
a massive force which quickly captured the Aleutian Islands of Attu
and Kiska.
The counteract the initial threat, the first joint effort of the
U.S. and Canada was to start construction of the Alcan (Alaska)
Highway (construction had actually been approved by a Bill in Congress
in 1929,
but was never pursued). One of the logistical problems involved
ensuring a supply of oil for the thousands of pieces of equipment
that would be used. Tanker traffic from California was now subject
to attack by enemy forces, threatening the oil supply to both the
highway project and the airfields along the Northwest Staging Route
from Montana to Alaska. Those airfields were rest and refueling
points for aircraft bound for Alaska, and for the Lend-Lease P-39s
bound for Russia, to aid their fight against the Nazis.
At the time, the safest potential oil supply appeared to be at Norman
Wells, on the Mackenzie River. Oil had been reported at this spot
as early as 1789, but the oil seeps were not staked until 1915.
Five
years later, the first drilling was undertaken, in August, oil was
struck. A small refinery was built, and by 1939 an 840-barrel-per-day
refinery was producing enough oil for local needs. It was therefore
decided to expand the Norman Wells field, and build a pipeline from
there to a new refinery to be built at Whitehorse; this pipeline
would be 600 miles long, passing through a virtually unknown land
containing everything from swampy valleys to high mountains and
raging rivers. From Whitehorse, a smaller pipeline would be built
alongside the new highway, to Ladd Field, the Army Air Corps base
at Fairbanks.
On paper in Washington, the project, those certainly one of the
most massive ever attempted, appeared relatively straight-forward.
In the summer of 1942, U.S. engineering troops and pipe were dispatched
to the end of rails in Alberta, 285 miles north of Edmonton; from
there, they were barged almost 1,100 miles to the river bank opposite
the Norman Wells refinery. At that point, a new camp - Camp Canol
(for "Canadian Oil"), would be set up to house the thousands
of workers who would be
needed.
At the main hiring office in Edmonton, the following poster warned
of the conditions to be expected on the job
June
15 42
THIS IS NO PICNIC
Working and living conditions on this job are as difficult as
those encountered on any construction job ever done in the United
States or foreign territory. Men hired for this
job will be required to work and live under the most extreme conditions
imaginable. Temperature will range from 90 degrees above zero
to 70 degrees below zero.
Men will have to fight swamps, rivers, ice and cold. Mosquitos,
flies and gnats will not
only be annoying but will cause bodily harm. If you are not prepared
to work under
these and similar conditions Do Not Apply
Bechtel-Price-Callahan
In
the spring of 1943, the first women arrived at Camp Canol, and a
distinct change in the social nature of the camp occurred - variety
shows were held, choral groups started, and a regular newsletter
was
produced.
Morale on the project hit the highest highs, and the lowest lows,
judging by comments of the day. The project was regularly under
fire from many directions, for reasons ranging from cost over-runs
to a
rumoured lack of enough producing wells to ever fill the pipeline.
For the black regiments in particular, being assigned to the hardest
labour work of the project was compounded by a critical shortage
of
Arctic-weight clothing, so that they were forced to burn lumber
and bridge timbers to keep warm.
Despite all the weather, geographic, logistical and political problems,
though, the pipeline did reach the new Whitehorse refinery - the
final weld was laid on February 16, 1944. With more pipeline having
been built to Fairbanks, Watson Lake, Skagway and Haines, 25,000
men (and about 150 women) had built 1,800 miles of pipeline and
2,000 miles of road in only 20 months. It was a short-lived success,
however; on April 1, 1945, the Whitehorse refinery was shut down.
Due to the inaccessible locations of some of the camps, a complete
clean-up of the project sites has never been attempted, despite
much attention to the problem. Artifacts such as Studebaker 6X6
trucks and other vehicles continue to fascinate adventurous photographers
to this day.
Today, the Canol Road is passable for smaller vehicles from the
Alaska Highway to the Yukon/Northwest Territories border. From there,
it is designated the Canol Heritage Trail, one of the outstanding
long-distance wilderness hikes in North America.
-30-
Suggested
Reading:
Garfield, Brian, The Thousand-Mile War (New York, NY: Doubleday,
1969)
Harris, P.A., The Canol Pictorial (self-published?, 1944)
Kadmon, Jean, Mackenzie Breakup (Whitehorse, YT: Pathfinder, 1997)
O'Reilly, Kevin, "A Postal History of the Canol Project"
(unpublished
manuscript, available from O'Reilly in Yellowknife, NWT)
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