INTERVIEW WITH KAREN GRAS-CECCHINELLI

Date of Interview: June 26, 2004 in Fort Nelson, British Columbia

Interviewer Hank Bridgeman
Transcriber: Case Mond

Hank Bridgeman:
I’m just gonna start with you telling me who you are, your name, and spelling it for me.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Okay. My name is Karen Gras-Cecchinelli C.E.C.C.H.I.N.E.L.L.I.

Hank Bridgeman:
And you’re a daughter of...?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Sergeant Chris Gras G.R.A.S.

Hank Bridgeman:
Now, the questions they gave me, I don’t... I’m gonna have to kinda alter things for this. So basically, tell me a little bit about your dad and when he came here and what he was doing here.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Okay. Well, he was a surveyor for the State of Wyoming and eh, joined the army before Pearl Harbor occurred, because he had some surveying experience. He was down in Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, with the 648 Engineering Battalion. They sent him up here and told him they needed to build a road to Alaska. That was in March, March 1942, and they had to come up while the rivers were still frozen. There were no bridges and they had to have a way to get across and get all the equipment up here before, before the spring, spring thaws came. And they had a big job to do and I guess they had it done in about nine months.

Hank Bridgeman:
Great. Did he tell you any stories about eh... I mean, he would have come to Dawson Creek first, eh?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
They did. He came up... They all came up to Dawson Creek on the train. From the train, they put them in army vehicles and they came up on what road there was as far as Fort Nelson. Fort Nelson is where they started their surveying and went north, northwest from here.

Hank Bridgeman:
I’m just gonna ask you, basically, some of the best stories that you remember him telling you...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Boy. I wish I’d brought the book and the notes. (laughs)

Hank Bridgeman:
Just the main ones that come to mind.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Ah. I just can’t remember the details of any of the stories. I just remember a story about an outhouse. He had quite a sense of humor. Our dad, when he related stories it was usually with a lot of humor involved. And eh, one of the officers told him that the outhouse had been frozen up. They had to do something about that. It was getting a little high. They had to do something about that. They couldn’t use it in there. So, he went out and poured a bunch of gasoline in there. And eh, he lit it, and eh...

Hank Bridgeman:
There was nobody sitting on it at the time?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
(laughs) I don’t think so. I don’t think so. And it blew, and I guess there was quite mess when they got that toilet cleaned up. But I think they probably had to build a new toilet when they were finished. The outhouse, you know. I guess they were fortunate to even have an outhouse, but... It was just so cold. Things froze up, and... I remember another story, a little vaguely, about an officer, and I can’t remember which officer that was. All these stories will be in Earl Brown’s book. He’s got all... My dad had... made notes, and when they got the original Alcan Trazer... Trailblazer book, he had a lot of stories in there. He remembered these things. But there was something about an officer in an outhouse and a bear came in. (laughs) He came running out of there, I guess, with his trousers around his ankles. That was a pretty humorous story too. But, eh, I think most of the stories were... It was just a lot of hard work. They had to endure a lot of extreme elements. The temperature, of course, here in the winter is very bitter, bitterly cold. And then in the summer they were prepared to deal with the insects, the biting gnats and mosquitos and eh... Even sleeping was a problem for him. There was a lot of insect problems.

Hank Bridgeman:
What was it like when, I mean... Here’s your dad telling these stories, about this crazy place up north.

Hank Bridgeman:
And for you... I mean, this must have been like, you know, almost the other end of the world.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
It was. Yeah, it was. We were, you know, as children... He related the stories to us so many times, you know. Whenever anyone come to visit or he’d meet with any of the old army buddies, and they relived these experiences so much, but... We were just bored with hearing the stories cause we had no idea, you know, what a monumental task they really had performed, you know. It was just stories that he had... It was not the kind of man who really bragged but he was proud, you know, proud of that experience. It was probably one of the most important occurrences in his life. He was... he had accomplished a big job, but he never really expressed that to us. We just heard the stories as things came to mind. And he would tell us about this guy and Harry [Spegels] did that, and Sergeant Lancaster did this, and then all that kind of thing.

Hank Bridgeman:
So when you were growing up, and you heard these stories, you were probably around the kitchen table or something...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yeah. Yeah, we heard them over and over and, we just, we were bored with it, cause we had no idea. We had no idea, and... We weren’t able... My husband and I, were able make a trip up here after my dad died. My dad died in ‘92, which was a result of the army experience. He had the yellow jaundice that we were able to finally prove after he passed away. It was actually Hepatitis C from... They were using human blood when they made the army inoculations. And in those days, you know, this was 62 years ago, they didn’t know about Hepatitis C and the dangers that you could get things and so. So many of the guys had had that and they would have the flare-ups up and then they would call it yellow jaundice, where they’d get really, really sick. And their skin would get yellow and didn’t know what it was. And then we were able to put it together after he died, and able to get my mother on full widow’s benefit, so, proving that his death was actually military-caused.

Hank Bridgeman:
That seems to be... That happens a lot, you know. The guys that now go the Middle East, right. The stuff they pump in them...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yeah, I know. You wonder. It’s terrible. He... When my dad started applying for that money, he said “All I know is just enough to cover my medications.” He wasn’t asking for a lot, you know. He just wanted to... And I remember the man who worked with him, at Veteran’s Affairs there, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, said “Well,” he said “it’s either a win or lose situation with the army,” he said, “the military. You either get none or you get it all.” Of course, their standard thing is to refuse first, and then when he died, we were able to submit some more information, and then they accepted it.

Hank Bridgeman:
Oh, good. Anything else that you remember...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Well, I’m gonna remember all kinds of things, afterwards. (laughs)

Hank Bridgeman:
Afterwards. (laughs) I know how that works.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yeah, when you’re, when you’re under pressure here to think of these things. Um, he met some, you know, some of these guys up here and they formed lifelong friendships. He became friends with Harry Spegels, and eh... Harry, of course, is the one who wrote the letters who documented so well what happened. And I wasn’t able to read those letters until Earl Brown sent them to me. And I was just deeply touched, you know, to be able to read it all and have a documentary of what occurred at what time during the whole process, and it fit in with some of the stories that my dad had to tell. And through the years he kept in touch, and Harry and his brother Carl came out to Wyoming a couple of times to visit us and my dad and mother went back to New York to visit them, and my husband and I were able to go to Buffalo last fall and visit Harry and Carl. And it was a great thing, great thing to see him. He’s a wonderful man.

Hank Bridgeman:
You know, it’s interesting, cause like, you know I remember when I was a kid, my father used to tell war stories. And I was like, aaahh... But as I got older, you know, then you... I think when you become an adult, then you can appreciate more what, you know, what they went through, you know.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
That’s it. That’s it. It was, it was deeply touching to me to actually come up here and see the length of this, you know, and see what the terrain was like and the environment.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Of course, we’re here during the best time of year, and when they were here, it wasn’t all good.

Hank Bridgeman:
Amazing it was all done in such a short time, I mean, through this country.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
I know. I know. I remember him talking about what a horrible ordeal it was dealing with the muskeg, the muskeg swamps, cause, you know, they blazed that trail and then the tractors and the equipment would come behind them and they just bogged down in it. And they were trying to figure out how to get a road through this. Then that’s how they came up that corduroy process, laying the logs, and... it’s pretty ingenious that they were able to do that.

Hank Bridgeman:
Did he have... Do you remember any stories of close calls or accidents, to kind of depict the danger of the project as well?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Um, the only one I can think of at the time was the vehicles that went through the ice at Charlie Lake, down there at Fort St. John.

Hank Bridgeman:
What happened there?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
There was just some army vehicles crossing the lake and they went through. They lost some of the drivers and trucks. That was a bad thing. They counted on being able to get across that ice, and being the spring, that ice was just getting weak, I guess, from all the heavy equipment that was going across. I remember a story, I think it was up on the Liard River, with horses. They had quite a time with the pack horses. And there was a time when the horses couldn’t... got kind of swept away and they lost a few. But they eventually got them all back. It was difficult getting the pack horses through that water. I, eh... I don’t think they had any problems with the animals. You know, they were aware of the danger with the bears and things. And I remember them having pictures of... someone actually had captured a baby bear and kept it for a pet. That was with the guys, I think, in the 35th Battalion, eh, that were coming behind. They had a baby bear, but I don’t think...

Hank Bridgeman:
What outfit was your dad with? Was it the 35th?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
No, he was with the 648 Engineering Battalion, the survey crew, that eh...

Hank Bridgeman:
So as a surveyor, he... basically, they would have been blazing trail and stuff...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
That’s right. They were up there just blazing the trail. And all they had to go by was a primitive map of the area and some aerial photographs that the army had gone over and taken. So, what they did was, took Charlie Macdonald, an Indian guide who knew some of the Indian trails through the area. And he was a big help to them. Charlie, I guess, was just very important to the whole procedure. And I remember him telling us that there were times when the guys were way ahead of the rest of the army and there were times they were short on food. They... There was no way to get the supplies up to the guys that were on foot. So Charlie Macdonald brought them meat, brought them food. And that was... They helped each other. And he said there was a time later on when they had a bad winter and the army was able to help out with Charlie and his family, with some food. So they had a very good working relationship.

Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah, Oh that’s interesting.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yeah, I’m anxious. I hope I’m able to meet some of the Macdonald family because we got some of the film my dad took of that and he’s got a picture of Charlie and his family, and his children. And the army guys had given these kids cigarettes. I don’t know why, but they had never seen them before. So had pictures of these little children smoking cigarettes. (laughs) Looking back at it, this was not a good thing, but they...

Hank Bridgeman:
At that time...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
It was... It was an interesting, interesting time.

Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah, cause, they were ahead of everybody else, so they... It was a totally different scene for them.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yeah, at one time, they were so short of food, the cook was making pancakes but they had nothing to make syrup out of. So they had candy. They melted candy. And that was what they made the syrup... That’s what they ate that day, was pancakes with melted candy on it. That was... There was a lot of times when they were hungry.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
You know, it was... They were roughing it. It was difficult, I guess, to find game at times, you know, to get wild meat. And fish. Of course, you can only fish when the rivers aren’t frozen.

Hank Bridgeman:
So in many ways, they were basically, right, just on their own?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
They were.

Hank Bridgeman:
No backup, or no... you know, just to get supplies to them would be next to impossible.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
They were way ahead. They did. And as they were looking for the trail, you know, they went down a lot of, a lot of routes that didn’t pan out, so they did a lot of backtracking, you know. They did a lot more walking than just the 300 miles that it took from here to Contact Creek. They had to find the best routes. They were just on foot, just walked.

Hank Bridgeman:
You mentioned, you mentioned that your father shot some film.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yes.

Hank Bridgeman:
Is that accessible? Does Earl...?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
He does. Earl’s got that film. We were able to get it digitized and it’s on a CD now. Earl’s got that film.

Hank Bridgeman:
Did he take pictures, or is it...

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
It’s moving film, movie camera film. He had an old 8 millimeter camera and he kept that with him, and... There’s just a, you know, a few minutes of film, you know, that was usable after all these years. And Earl is going to narrate that, and... since it was, you know, silent, silent film from those days. And Earl’s got that. He’s gonna narrate it and explain who the individuals are on there and what areas they have. I’m really glad we were able to do that. I was very nervous about letting that film go, being the only film there was.

Hank Bridgeman:
That’s why I went: Film?? So, what’s it like for you coming up here?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Ah, you make me cry here. (laughs) I find it very touching to, eh... Well, first of all, the people here in Fort Nelson, Earl Brown and his family and everyone has just been wonderful. They’re just like family. We’ve been talking to Earl and sending him the pictures and the film, and communicating by telephone for about a year. And just coming up here and seeing it all and now getting to meet a few of the original guys that were there and knew my dad. It’s just extremely touching, very touching to me.

Hank Bridgeman:
Have you been up the highway yet? Or are you going?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Not this trip. My husband and I did a few years ago, but we were on our own, so we really didn’t know a lot about what we were seeing and where things occurred. And the road is now been improved and straightened so many times that I have a feeling I don’t know where the guys really were in relation to the new road.

Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah, cause it’s changed quite a bit, you know. It’s straightened out... There are still old... There are still parts that were part of the original, but it’s changed a lot too.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Yes.

Hank Bridgeman:
So, anything else you want to say?

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
I can’t think of anything. I just appreciate what everyone is doing here and putting this together... It’ll be important for our children and grandchildren.

Hank Bridgeman:
Yeah. Good.

Karen Gras-Cecchinelli:
Thank you.

Hank Bridgeman:
That was not hard...

Table of Contents