Alaska Highway History

An Explorer's Guide to the Alaska Highway ("Alcan")

Dateline: January 26, 2023

    Sigrid Arne first came to my attention when I bought the press photo below on eBay in 2002. In the online newspaper archives I use, the search term "Sigrid Arne" results in 25,941 matches. The amount of work she produced is quite remarkable.

    Sigrid Arne was born Sigrid Holmquist in New York City, the daughter of Magnus Holmquist and Hulda (Larson) Holmquist. Both her birth and death dates are uncertain - possibly April 6, 1894 and February 1973. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in 1922, then worked for newspapers in Oklahoma (the Muskogee Times-Democrat), New York (Plain Talk magazine), Cleveland, and Detroit, adopting the pen name Sigrid Arne in 1926, probably because Sigrid Holmquist was a very well-known actress. She joined the staff of the Washington bureau of the Associated Press in 1932, and began working as a roving reporter for Wide World News, an AP associate, in December 1941. A nice biography was published at eWillys.com in 2020.

The text above:

"(This picture is for release to papers of Sunday, June 14, and thereafter, with Sigrid Arne's Fort St. John, B.C., Wide World story on New Alaska Highway)

FIRST HAND INFO ON ALASKA HIGHWAY WORK

Sigrid Arne, Wide World News writer, climbs a roaring bulldozer to get first hand information from U.S. Army Engineers soldiers as they work clearing away for advance road crews on the Alaska Highway...at the farthest north construction point. The soldiers are Private Levi Schrock of Arthur, Illinois, left, and Private Albert Tomaino of Pittsburgh, PA. This picture, taken by Grant MacDonald, Wide World photographer, was made at the extreme end of the road, far out in the wilderness. The mosquitoes were very bad here. Note neck cloth of Schrock and head kerchief on Arne."

Photo A16101, June 8, 1942

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U.S. Army Beats the Thaw - Alaska Highway, June 1942
This is the article mentioned in the press photo above.