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Show TRAVELOGUE TRIBOLE TRIO SAYS ALCAN HIGHWAY ROUGH TEST FOR NEW AUTOMOBILES m Bill Tribole, accompanied by his two cousins, Bill and Bob Cottrell, sons of Dr. W. F. Cot-trell Cot-trell of Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, returned last week from a six v;eeks vacation spent touring several of the U. S. and Canadian parks, and Alaska over the Alcan Highway, the military highway built by the U. S. government during World War II and now jointly operated by United States and Canadian governments. The entire trip was made by Jeep and trajler, and when asked for comments on the trip regarding road conditions, accommodations, ac-commodations, etc., the three gave some of the following observations ob-servations as they had found and observed" along the way: The trip began when the two boys were met by Bill Tribole at Rock Springs, Wyo., after having hav-ing come from their Ohio home by bus. The trio then headed northward toward the Jackson Hole country and the Teton region. re-gion. Dr. Stafford and son Jack, from Oxford, Ohio, physician physi-cian for the Cottrell family at that place, were also visiting the same area and afforded air transportation for Bill, Bob and Tribole, flying over the Jackson Jack-son Lake area, Moran, and the Teton mountain range. At Yellowstone Park the three ran into inclement weather weath-er and o'n July 19th encountered a snowstorm in the park proper. Fishing was exceptionally good and the usual number of bears were seen and photographed. j The next tour was of Glacier i National Park and rain still persisted. Here fishing was poor but the scenery beautiful. Active glaciers were apparent atop Logan Pass. At Carway, Canada, they crossed over the Canadian customs after very little formality and inconvenience. inconven-ience. They advised that the only limitations asked by the Canadian government was that of pistols or weapons of a similar sim-ilar nature. These had to be either left at the customs office or returned by mail to the United Unit-ed States. Rifles or shotguns were allowable. Road condiions from Calgary to Edmonton, Alberta, were good comparable to any of the U. S. super highways, but from Edmonton to Dawson Creek, B. C, the roads were terribly rough and muddy. The area along the Lesser Slave Lake for about 200 miles was the worst of the entire trip, passing thru! several Indian reservations and, along the edge of the . Slave Lake. The Hudson Bay Company Com-pany trading posts were located along the road at regular intervals inter-vals and raw furs such as timber tim-ber wolf, beaver, otter, mink, lynx, fox and bear, were still being offered by native trappers trap-pers in exchange for oemmodi-ties oemmodi-ties needed to operate a home. Prices were reasonable. Red fox, for example, was selling for about $10 and silver fox for about $30. At Dawson, JB. C, is milepost "0", the beginning of the 1523-mile 1523-mile Alaska Highway, a thriving thriv-ing little . community of about the size of Cedar City, Utah. It is served by the Alberta Northern North-ern Railway. At each mile from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks, Alaska, the distance is designated designat-ed by mile post rather than by name. The Alaska Highway itself it-self is graveled the entire distance, dis-tance, is 36 feet wide, and aside from the innumerable spots at which it is being worked upon it fairly good traveling. Excessive speeds will result in tire damage and costs. The three travelers advise that they blew out three tires, had 14 punctures, and broke three shock absorbers traveling the 4,000 miles of dirt and graveled road. As to availability of gasoline and repairs they advised that gas can be obtained at intervals of about every 50 miles; the longest stretch of nonhabitation being from Nelson, B. C, to Lower Post, a distance of about 90 miles. They carried extra gasoline with themjput did not use it. Tourist cabins are obtainable ob-tainable at nearly all of the stations. Cafes are in operation, and automobile repairs for minor work is available about every 100 miles. Prices are considerably con-siderably higher than in the U. S. The highest price for gasoline was paid at Nelson, B C, where an imperial gallon (about 1 15 U. S. gallon) sells for 69c. The average price per gallon on the Alaska Highway is about 60c per gallon. Oil is about 65c per quart, but easily obtainable. Fairbanks, Alaska, is the end of the 1523 miles of Alaska (Continued on Page Four) i ! HERE'S MORE ABOUT TRIBOLES (Continued from Page One) Highway aryi about 300 miles from the Alaska-Canada border. The 1200 miles of Alaska Highway High-way in Canada is maintained by the Royal Canadian Army Engineers Engi-neers and the 300 miles in Alaska is maintained by the Department De-partment of Interior and is a good, smooth surfaced road. Black topping is being initiated about eight miles out of Fairbanks Fair-banks and is under the contract of the Morrison-Knutzen Company Com-pany of -Boise, Idaho. It is hoped that eventually the entire en-tire 300 miles to the Canadian border will be paved, but winter win-ter conditions prevent working except for a few short months in the summer. The 60 degrees blow zero weather at Fairbanks and the 82 degrees below zero weather recorded at Snag Creek make roadbuilding a difficult job and requires constant repairing. re-pairing. Circle City, Alaska, a small village of perhaps 200 Indians and Eskimoes, is the farthest north anyone can travel by road and ii was here that the three fellows and their jeep, "El Chivo" (Spanish for "The Goat"), arrived to meet the mighty Yukon River. At Circle City they were within 300 miles of the North Pole. There on the Yukon they saw the fish wheels used by the native Indians and saw salmon running. One such salmon weighed 60 lbs. They expected to see primitive life but were amazed when the Indian In-dian fishermen came in with a Johnson Sea Horse outboard motor attached to his canoe and to see that his wife in the log cabin hut had a new Maytag gas-operated washing machine. They began to wonder just where the commercialized world hadn't touched as yet. They had hoped to see the herd of 10,000 caribou that had been ranging atop Eagle Summit, but the herd had moved farther south about two weeks previouii-Caribou previouii-Caribou season was to be opened about the first of October. Wild life abounds in trie mountains, but it is difficult to see it from any of the main traveled highways. high-ways. It is necessary to get back into the country to see it. They did see, however, a timber wolf that had been killed, weighing 200 lbs., and 8 feet from tip to tip. Huge moose antlers were seen that would indicate in-dicate enormous animals. Both black and brown and grizzly bears were seen at various times along the highway, the bears eating the wild raspberries raspber-ries and blueberries that grow abundantly along '500 or 600 miles of the Alcan. Bob's and Trib's chief interest was fishing and on the Tetsa I River they found fishing especially espe-cially good. The Tetsa River originates at the base of a glacier gla-cier and the water is so cold that it fairly paralyzes one's hand even while cleaning the fish after they had been caught. Greyling, whitefish and dolly varden trout were the most common varieties taken on the fly line. Bob advises that the greyling is equally as good a fighter as is the trout. His smallest fish was about 14 inches long. When asked about the living conditions in Alaska and prices there ,the fellows admitted that the prices were prohibitive Bread, 35c a loaf, eggs $1.20 a dozen, fresh milk 65c a quart, celery 70c a pound. Haircuts were $1.75 in Fairbanks and $2 in Anchorage. Rents were prohibitive pro-hibitive $100 to $150 a month for a building little better than a shack. Wages, on the other hand, were high. A first class carpenter drew $4 an hour. There seemed to be plenty of jobs available, due to the large construction projects going on. The Alaska Railway is building large trackage areas, new round houses, and is improving its rolling stock greatly. Military bases at Ladd Field are being enlarged, also at Anchorage. Fairbanks gets its wealth largely from the gold mining that is near the city. At Ester are some of the largest dredges in the world, and it is here that one can watch the dredge move enough gravel to extract $30,000 worth of gold in a single sin-gle day's operation. There are about 10 dredges of this type near the city. When asked as to the future of the highway and its being opened up for the tourist, they were of the opinion that it would be some time before tourist tour-ist travel in large numbers would be en route to Alaska, but they indicated that they passed a great many automo biles from the States, some of them pulling heavy house trailers trail-ers that eventually made the entire distance, but they indicated indi-cated further that a new car would be an old car after making mak-ing the round trip over the entire en-tire 4,000 miles of dirt and mud roads. Most of the driving was done by Bob Cottrell, and he indicated indicat-ed that it was a test of endurance endur-ance and nerves and many times during the driving rains and mud he could observe the trailer alongside the jeep whenever when-ever he looked out the window. He was happy to engage the 4-wheel drive arrangement of the jeep many times. Great concern was expressed by a Mr. Ralph Bates at Mason Creek Lodge, at milpost 171 on the highway, regarding the great amount of military travel over the road at this time. Several Sev-eral large convoys of both U. S. and Canadian troops moved over the road, and he said that there was as much military travel over the road as there was at any time during the late war. Permanent military bases for U. S. soldiers have now been placed in existence at Camp Nelson, B. C. and at Fort St. John, B. C. Mr. Bates' concern over the military was supplemented by another man when he was encountered in Edmonton on the return trip, who said that he was anxious to get to the United States and have his vacation before, as he put it, "the war began." The threat of World War III with Russia and the use of the Alaska Highway once more for military purposes was uppermost in the minds of a good many of the Canadian people encountered by the travelers from Utah. The trip home included the Canadian Park areas of Lake Louise, Banff, Koutney and the Flathead Lake area in northern Montana. Bob and Trib enjoyed en-joyed a day's fishing on the Blackfoot River near Missoula, Mont, as guests of Mr. and Mrs. James G. Lamoreaux, wartime war-time buddy of Mr. Tribole. Bill and Bob returned to Oxford Ox-ford Sunday morning, where they will resume their studies, I Bill as a sophomore at Miami University and Bob as a senior at McGuffey High School. |