Saglek, Labrador

Operation SUNAC with Saglek Detail
1951 – Delmer Burton

Prior to the fall of 1951 I had worked with different firms on electrical work and although I was not a fully qualified electrician, I knew quite a bit in the area of theory. In mid September 1951 I learned that a firm called Fraser Brace was hiring men to go north on a government project. I went for an interview and it was determined that my knowledge was sufficient to be hired for the project.

In an attempt to shorten this story - let me simply say that we departed for Cape Chidley in early October 1951. We would eventually arrive - sit on the vessels for about three weeks - and then return to Newfoundland, never having set foot on shore or offloaded any materials - all due to weather conditions. All of the details pertaining to this trip are in another article - "Operation SUNAC with Cape Chidley detail" (in this part of the web site).

On our return to Saint John all hands left the employee of Fraser Brace and as I inquired about transportation home I was coaxed to consider going to another site some distance south of Cape Chidley. This site was supposedly already under construction with a small crew on location. Transportation wwas to be via a boat with proper accomodation etc. I stayed in St. John with another chap who had agreed to return north.

There was quite a large number of men staying at Royal Hotel but none of them knew where we were going except that our destination would be south of Cape Chidley. We never knew when we might depart, so every night there was a "going away party" of one sort or another. One day, on the bus going to our daily signing place, one comic anounced he was going to sue Fraser Brace for ruining his health because he had been to 28 going away parties and had only been on the job for 27 days.

Near the latter part of October a small group of about 12 of us were told we were of a select group and that we would be leaving next day. We flew to St. Johns where we were to sail north to a site in southern Labrador. It is rather funny though as we believed then that our accomodation would be great. Well after four days of continious parties, at which time we were probably three sheets in the wind, we were loaded aboard a 200 ton whaling vessel of Norwegian orgin. By the time we knew where we were I found my bunk was on a bench in the mess room in the aft portion of the ship. We were carrying a deck load of lumber. We were not built for cargo but we had to take this as the ship coming behind us with winter supplies of food etc. was already overloaded.

The decks were continually awash and our voyage lasted for 10 days with stops at Cartwright (which I learned was site N-27) and Hopedale (N-28) where I would work at a later date.

I was seasick for every meal, along with many others of our group. There were 12 in our group, and I think that the vessel had a crew of eight or ten personnel. The whaler had an ice-breaker bow for sailing in some icy waters and the vessel was name Olaf Olsen.

We did not go ashore when we anchored at Hopedale. We were reasonably warm aboard the ship and we had been warned that there was no accomaodations ashore. We soon found ourselves on the last leg of our trip to Saglek Bay. The supply vessel was still behind us and we were taking a route behind some islands. Travel was slow through occasional patches of ice and on occasion, we found ourselves continually dodging some huge icebergs.

We eventually found ourselves in some lovely calm waters in November of 1951. We were told that that this was Saglek Bay. Ice was starting to form all around us. We pulled close to the shore and started to discharge our belongings as well as the lumber. The Captain of the ship appeared to be in one hell of a rush to get out to sea before the ice got any heavier. He had reason to be concerned. The supply ship never did arrive. There was plenty of food - but everything was canned except for biscuits, biscuits, and more biscuits.

With the 12 of us - there was a total crew of 40 now ashore at working at Saglek. There was one Eskimo family a man called Willie, his wife (who was known as Millie) and some children. They lived a short distance away. They had two boys, about 14 or 15 years old, but they could not speak any English. There was also a family from Hebron, which was a native village about 20 or 25 miles south, visiting to see if they could get work on the site. The employment of local natives was not allowed at that time.

The 12 of us in our group were all quarted in same hut - a well constructed 20 x 24 plywood prefab building with aluminum sheet insulation between sheets of plywood. There was an oil stove with an oil jug attached burning stove oil. The jug could be removeed and taken away for refueling. Some of camps were 2 x 4 frame covered with heavy canvas but these were mainly for use in the summer. Winterized camps were well insulated with door at each end and three windows on each side. We were streched out enjoying the feel of a good bed after 10 nights on a bench when Jim Dobson from Minto NB (a dozer operator) took out his false teeth. One of the Eskimo boys damned near went crazy. You must remember that this was 1951 and he had never seen or heard of false teeth. That evening we had vistors - all of his family came to see this remarkable man who could remove all his teeth - and they could not.

The actual original campite at Site N-29 (Saglek) eventually became Green Beach One. The original site at Saglek had been started during the summer of 1951 and the beach was a great landing site. The objective was to build a road circumventing a large mouintain and traveling through a valley that was very narrow and at a point about 2/3 miles from camp dropped about 600 feet or more. While it was possible for a person to ascend this 600 feet, the valley was too narrow to build switch backs to traverse to near sea level. Gene, our supervisor, had been trying desperately to express his concern of the immossibe task of building the proposed road. The proposed road would have been almost 12 miles long and like most sites termineated on a high rise land. Just before the proposed road would have started the final climb it would have crossed the most near level piece of land north of Goose Bay.

We would eventually build and use an air strip at this location (Green Beach 2 - which served as the permanent lower base for the radar station which would become operational in the fall of 1953). This piece of land had a history of its own which I would like to mention. Prior to my arrival at Saglek (Site N-29), our people were informed of a plane crash during World War II. The remains of this aircraft was still there in 1951. Four of our Fraser Brace personnel decided to take a motor boat and view the crash site in November 1951. Their fuel supply had been tampered with and when they approached their intended destination, their motor stooped. High waves capsized their dory and these people soon found themselves ashore with a broken dory and no means of communication. They decided that two of them would start a return to Green Beach One (not so named at this time} and return with another boat to get the other two. The temperature at Saglek in November was most often minus 15 or 20 during the night. The two chaps made it back to Green Beach 1 but suffered frozen toes and partially partial frozen feet. They were lucky though since the last plane of 1951 flew them out of Saglek. We heard, much later, that some amputation was necessary. We later learned that the plane they had gone to see was a USAF B-26 Marauder bomber.

It was getting to look like we were in for a long winter. The supply ships could no longer come because the ice in the bay was solid. Big chunks of ice kept piling up so we could never land a plane in those conditions. What was needed was more snow so we could level the bay. We got too brave along the way. I have a picture showing a bulldozer, almost submerged. Daylight was geting shorter and shorter. I suppose we would have had more daylight had we been on the mountain. Our camp was at sea level or within 10 feet of sea level. There wasn't much of a tide problem.

We had plenty of supplies but we didn't have any meat - except Spam. Everyone was hoping that we could get the Bay leveled soon as some of the fellows had been here almost 6 months. Mail was not able to come in or out during this period of time. We had two wireless operators. Don Camp was British. He had been torpeded in the Mediterranean Sea and had spent some time on a raft. Mose Blundon was from Harbour Grace Newfoundland. He was a very nervous type, but he was a great guy. We only had permission to send messsages about work and no personal messages were allowed. As an electrician, I would service all all of the generators and repair the lights which were being used for road building. Looking back - it was kind of funny. Our Supevisor was tring to convince the authorities that it was impossible to build the road - and yet, messages would come back saying "Keep building the road".

Gene, the supervisor, and I seemed to build a bond and we were becoming good friends. We played checkers to pass the time away. I always beat him but he was great loser. He had once been lost about 100 miles from Goose Bay for almost four months. He survived by fishing and and he had found an old cabin with a stove. He knew about isolation. We worked most days 10 or 12 hours but we were waiting for mail from home. It was getting near Christmas.

We were moving a small generator around to take its place beside our first aid station. We were very short of mechanical devices. I think there were many items at Saglek as we had a large area covered with many things. I am not sure how they arrived as this was before my time at Saglek. It was difficult to find items as the catalogue or master file list was missing. This would continue to cause supply problems until March 1952, as there was too much snow to contend with. At any rate, the generator slipped and about 550 to 700 pounds of weight landed on my index finger and simply sheared the first 3/4 of an inch off of the index finger of my left hand. My glove stayed beneath the generator and I went in to see Frank Phillips who was our medic. I believe he was a registed male nurse - there were not many of them aound in 1951. Frank sent some one to get the glove. I think he might have been able to reattach the two. He split the glove down and out popped a portion of my finger. Strange how it made me rather weak as previously I had administered first aid to chap with five bullet holes and he survied. I am mentioning this accident because I was now unable to use this finger to hold a screw for almost two years.

To be continued....