#kanasaskis

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Picturesque Location For Internment Camps,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. December 27, 1939. Page 02. ---- No Complaints About Food or Work Heard From Occupants of Kanasaskis, Nestled in Foothills of Southern Alberta --- Canadian Press KANANASKIS, Alta., Dec. 27. - Some 200 aliens would be the happiest people in the world in East Claire Camp nestled in this beautiful Kananaskis River Valley at the base of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta, if they had their freedom.

They have most of the major items of ‘paradise’ - free clothing, warm comfortable sleeping quarters, good meals, recreation hours, light work and magazines to read. But, the camp is an internment camp, a two-acre site and armed guards survey their every move.

Nevertheless, the men brought here from the four Western Canadian Provinces by Royal Canadian Mounted Police soon after Canada declared a state of war with Germany, are ‘happy and well treated,’ military authorities stated.

Except for spasms of lonesomeness  for relatives and a chance to read latest newspapers, the letters from alien prisoners to friends state the men are well satisfied, officials revealed.

The only dark spot on the camp record was the bold break of two Germans, December 7, when they were believed to have slithered over the encampment barricade, behind shelter of 16 hutments, and climbed two carefully constructed fences.

One fence is 12 feet high of six-inch mesh netting with a three-foot leaf at a 45-degree angle at the top that is covered with barbed wire. The other fence is six feet high and also barbed-wire coated.

The two men, however, were captured in Calgary, 65 miles away, when an alert storekeeper heard them telephoning for a taxi.

Eau Claire Camp, with facilities to accommodate 300 men and a guard staff made up of Great War veterans and a few young soldiers from the Calgary regiment, is one of two like camps for aliens. The other is located at Petawawa, Ont.

Most of the aliens at Eau Claire were transported by rail to the nearest railway point, Seebe, 16 miles east of the camp, early in September. From Seebe, military authorities moved them by truck over the various trails into the camp.

Eau Claire Camp, with 16 hutments in the enclosure and eight outside for the guard staff, is situated with Mount Barrier to the south and Mount Lorette on the west side. It is one of the most picturesque settings in the foothills.

Bushland and prairie spots extend to the north and east. The dozens of trails easily would cause a strange to lose his way. To use the main road to the Calgary-Banff Highway, about nine miles away, would bring a person face-to-face with guards.

Prisoners begin work daily at 8.30 a.m. They cut wood, repair roads, shovel dirt for new hut foundations, or do light forestry duties. At 12 o’clock, they have dinner. Work is resumed at 1:30 p.m. At dusk, about 5 p.m., the men are free to entertain themselves in their camp enclosure.

Quoits has become the popular game during the noon hour. No musical instruments or daily newspapers, however, can be located in the camp.

During the 1933-36 period up to 600 unemployed men were stationed at the several camp sites in Kananaskis Forestry Reserve under the Department of Defence single men’s unemployed camps scheme. The majority of the hutments in the present internment camps are to buildings constructed several years ago for winter occupancy. New huts are similar to those who used by various Canadian Active Service Force units.

Chief aim of the guard staff, is to have the prisoners cut sufficient wood during the present mild spell to last all winter. Each camp will use about five cords a day.

So far there have been no complaints from the men about their work, their food, or the manner in which guards treat them.

[thatsnakeman]

Three Sisters (view from Canmore), Kanasaskis, Alberta [OC] [6000x4000] via /r/EarthPorn https://ift.tt/3bEFK1q