Arthur Milnes
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Jun 12/98) - They will be talking about California's John Nicoll and Mel Harrison for a long time to come in Fort Simpson.

The pair, both in their 70s, got off the plane here Sunday, more than 50 years after they had served with the American army at a Second World War weather station near the village.

Like thousands of other American soldiers in the Second World War, Nicoll and Harrison spent part of their youth here as the allied military worked to ensure that oil and gas -- essential to the success of the allied war effort -- flowed smoothly south as the war continued.

Then in their 20s, the pair, who both served as US Army sergeants, arrived in Fort Simpson in Sept. 1943 and stayed almost until the end of the war, manning the weather station at the Fort Simpson airport that was constructed back then by the US military.

For the record, Nicoll recalled that -72 C was the coldest temperature the young Americans ever recorded.

Still in use today, the airport is where the old warriors touched the ground this week they had last landed on more than 50 years ago.

"We outfitted ourselves at the Hudson's Bay Company because the American Army didn't know beans about outfitting soldiers for the Arctic," Nicoll said, while recalling mornings in the base's log cabins which lacked running water and were heated by an empty drum used as a fireplace.

"I wouldn't have missed this trip for the world. We had to come back one more time."

Both retired educators, they found a village listing for Fort Simpson about three months ago while surfing the Net. Since then, they've been busy-e-mailing the village's community economic development officer, Sean Whelly, in preparation for their trip.

As word of their arrival spread quickly through town, Nicoll and Harrison were reunited with their aboriginal friend from the war years, including Edward "Fly" Villeneuve, who had worked washing dishes at the base. And, Nicoll had long been part of village legend after he showed the young Villeneuve how to use a Thompson sub-machine gun during those far-off years.

"They've stuck together," an obviously moved Villeneuve, 70, said shortly after greeting his long-lost American friends from childhood.

"Back then they were always together. I never thought I'd see them again. They've changed just a little -- like me."

A lifelong area resident, Villeneuve said the war years were an exciting time for local residents. He recalled the planes, other military activity and the arrival of a people -- African Americans -- that most aboriginals had never seen before.

"It was so much fun for us when the Americans were here," Villeneuve said.

As for the veterans, they said they kept busy in the sub-Arctic hatching new schemes to brew their own booze, fight the cold -- once even burning down their cabin -- and continue to file weather reports.

"We like to recall that is was us (and their weather information) that gave General (Dwight) Eisenhower the go-ahead for D-Day," Nicoll told students at Thomas Simpson high school who gathered to hear their tales Monday morning during a visit organized by Ken Brown.

Both also said their isolated Northern posting gave them the chance to read, and read and read, thanks to books supplied by the Red Cross. They then went on to college, courtesy of the GI Bill which provided free post-secondary education to veterans in the post-war years.

Along the way, they became friends for life. Harrison married a Canadian girl with Nicoll serving as his best man at the 1944 ceremony in Edmonton.

"He was a better bartender than a best man," Harrison joked when telling the tale Monday to which he received the following reply. "Hell, you stayed married didn't you?"

As you can see, a friendship born in the rugged Canadian wilderness continues to this day.

They took off from Fort Simpson airport -- perhaps for the last time -- Monday afternoon.