Blizzard: Edmonton's 1942 Snow Storm, a story by Nan Morrison

Nan Morrison describes some ways in which Edmonton coped with an extraordinarily heavy snowfall in 1942.

As an eleven year old, I woke up to be told that there had been a very heavy snowfall the previous night, and the schools were closed. Dad was using a gravel shovel to shovel his way from our back door to 76th Street, a distance of a hundred feet. From there, he intended to shovel from 110 Avenue to 112 Avenue in order to take the streetcar to work. However, after shovelling some more, he came to the conclusion that the streetcars were not running. I remember walking in the narrow path in snow that was as high as my waist.


My father, George Clark, decided he must get to work and keep the boilers stocked. This was not his regular job, but being one of the family owners, he realised the pipes in the factory, warehouse, and office would freeze if the boilers went out. Dad had a pair of 1926 era skies, which came with a leather harness. He tied his metal lunch bucket around him, and with his 1926 era bamboo ski poles skied to work, via 112 Avenue, west to the CNR rail tracks, and then followed the tracks to the CNR station. Somewhere here, he generally followed the 104th Avenue route to Clark Lumber, which was situated on 109th Street and 104th Ave. George Clark remained on the business site stoking the boilers for two full days and two full nights. He caught a little sleep in an old oak chair that stayed in the boiler room. The odd employee that lived nearby arrived at work.


Back in the Virginia Park area, south of Borden Park, around eight o'clock, on the second night following the heavy snowstorm, we heard a loud noise outside in the dark. It was a massive grader, ploughing out the snow on the road in front of our home on 110th Avenue. Edmonton simply did not have graders like this! The grader belonged to the Americans who were in Edmonton for the building of the Alaska Highway. The 110th Avenue was a paved road extension of Ada Boulevard, from the Cromdale area 112th Avenue south to 61st Street, in the Highlands. From there, there were dirt roads into Beverly. We later found out the only reason we were fortunate to get 110th Avenue snowploughed was the urgent need for the University Hospital to receive its daily coal deliveries from the coal mines in Beverly. Ada Boulevard and 110th Avenue was the regular route for the delivery of coal. At that time, 112 Avenue from 76 Street east to 61st Street was gravel, with a single streetcar track in the middle. Thus that is the reason for using the paved Ada Boulevard Road beyond 76th Street to the Beverly Coal Mines daily.


Mr. and Mrs. Granstrom operated the Virginia Park Greenhouses at the corner of 110th Avenue and 75A Street. Their greenhouses were also heated by coal. After the heavy snowfall, Mr. Granstrom single-handedly shovelled the cinder lane from 110th Avenue to 112th Avenue-wide enough to get a truck in for his coal delivery. He never anticipated having the kindness of the use of the American's snowplough to plough out 110th Avenue. His shovelling was all in vain. After 110th Avenue was snowploughed out, he had a route for coal to be delivered to his coal chute!