Word: musk
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Operation Musk-Ox," the Canadian Army's strategic tour around the roof of the world, last week came to an inglorious end. It was licked by something few had foreseen-dust. Up till then, the 45 men in the expedition had endured unbelievably tough conditions in their 3,000-mile trek. Frequently the mercury dropped way out of sight (coldest day: 52° below zero). The ten snowmobiles floundered through miles of man-swallowing swamps; crossed ice-choked rivers in spring flood, like the Fort Nelson, on rafts; gingerly pushed their way across great chasms on improvised timber bridges...
...last leg Musk-Ox bogged down. The snowmobiles which had licked the northern wilderness could not take modern highway conditions. On the gravel of the Alaska Highway their engines became clogged with dust, the heat in the vehicles became unbearable. At Grand Prairie, Alberta, with but 250 miles to go to Edmonton, Musk-Ox called for help. A special train was sent up. Eighty days out of Churchill, Manitoba, the weary men of Musk-Ox were glad to load their snowmobiles on the train, pile on themselves for the ride to their goal...
...wastelands of northwestern Canada, U.S. officers had joined "Operation Musk-Ox," designed to push air bases as far north as possible...
Before the expedition reached Edmonton some time next May, the men of Musk-Ox would have traveled 800 airline miles (1,150 route miles) north to Cambridge Bay, some 600 more southwest to Fort Norman on the mighty Mackenzie River, and 900 airline miles south in the Mackenzie Valley. It would be comparable to a trip from Tallahassee to Chicago to central Nebraska to Corpus Christi. The region has been visited so infrequently by man that close-up maps of it are liberally sprinkled with such vague comments as "flat country" and "rolling plains with numerous lakes...
Operation Musk-Ox had set out to learn about this unknown country. The mechanized explorers of Musk-Ox would study the geology, meteorology and topography of the Dominion's upper reaches, the performance of snowmobiles (originally designed for the Allied invasion of Norway but never used), the suitability of new-type winter clothing and winter shelters. They would test the feasibility of supplying ground forces by air under Arctic conditions...