Yukon who is who

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Eusebe Morisset OMI (1915 - 1993)
	
Eusebe Morisset was born at St. Michael de Bellechasse near Quebec City.  During the construction of the Alaska Highway, most of the regular chaplains were overseas so the United States Army asked Bishop Courdet provide missionaries. Father Morisset arrived in August 1943 to serve as a missionary and auxiliary chaplain with the American Army. The pioneer highway was opened in November 1942 but was restricted to military vehicles because it was rough and for military reasons. Morisset was responsible for the area from Whitehorse to the Alaska border. He travelled for about eight months from camp to camp and was based in Whitehorse. 
Camps were from thirty to forty miles apart. Some of the camps were already abandoned by 1943. The buildings were left after the bridge or road was finished. Before the highway construction, Champagne was on the horse trail to Dawson via the Chilkat Pass. There was a trading post there and the First Nations travelled by walking, dog team, or by horse. Father Morisset met Tom Dickson, Sue Van Bibber's father, there and his family. There were a few old people staying there - most of the able people were out trapping or hunting or had moved to Whitehorse.((Yukon Archives 92/14 SR131. Alaska Highway Interpretive Milepost Project, 1991. Helene Dobrowolsky interviewing Father Morisset, 24 September 1991.))  

Father Morisset built the church at Champagne in 1946 or '47 with materials from an abandoned camp by the Takhini River. It was all prefabricated. This church does not exist anymore. Morisset's main mission was at Burwash and he visited Champagne periodically. There were about 200-300 men at Haines Junction. They were hired by the construction companies - the soldiers were all gone, and the army engineers were the supervisors. The families moved in only after the Canadians took over in 1946. After the bridge was finished the camp supplied both roads. The Haines Road as still being built in 1943 and Father Morisset travelled to Haines, Alaska for the first time in the fall. The car (army carryall) was lifted over each river by a crane installed in the middle. 
Father Morisset built the Quonset-style church in Haines Junction in 1950. The community was being settled by the families of those running the experimental farm a few miles down the road. There was also a pipeline camp past MacIntosh Lodge. Father Morisset got one of the prefab Quonset huts from the camp and remodeled it as a church in the front and his residence in the back. The rectory was built later from another building from the pipeline camp. This was a barracks-style building located about ten miles up the road. He moved it with equipment from Whitehorse and put it on cement foundations.((Yukon Archives 92/14 SR131. Alaska Highway Interpretive Milepost Project, 1991. Helene Dobrowolsky interviewing Father Morisset, 24 September 1991.)) 

By 1944 many camps were closing and Father Morisset did not like travelling to Whitehorse. The Bishop bought him a pick-up truck. He had to get permits to travel the highway, so he did that and moved to Burwash where he stayed in a cabin owned by the Jacquots.((Yukon Archives 92/14 SR131. Alaska Highway Interpretive Milepost Project, 1991. Helene Dobrowolsky interviewing Father Morisset, 24 September 1991.))

The Duke River bridge construction camp was about six miles north. The army had started the camp with green logs but never finished one building because they started using with prefab structures. In late 1944, the bridge was nearly finished and the camp was being abandoned. Morisset asked for the logs and transport to his mission. He, another Oblate brother, and Morisset's congregation dismantled the building and re-built it near Burwash. He hired a Swiss carpenter from Whitehorse to frame the roof. He was moved in by Christmas 1944 and held midnight mass in the new church. By January 1, he had started to teach a dozen children. There were about thirty to thirty-five people living there at the time.((Yukon Archives 92/14 SR131. Alaska Highway Interpretive Milepost Project, 1991. Helene Dobrowolsky interviewing Father Morisset, 24 September 1991.))
	
Father Morriset had one of the few cars at Burwash Landing and he would take people out to check their gopher snares or traps, to get drinking water, or to get a ride out to Duke Meadows camp. He had a garden and greenhouse and taught gardening skills to a lot of people. He planted a community garden to share potatoes, carrots and turnips.((Sharon Kabanak, “Where I Come From” in //Kluane Lake Country People Speak Strong.// Kluane First Nation, 2023: 228.))

Father Morisset built a log church at Snag in 1948 with Father Rigaud, who was in Teslin, and Brother Soucy, who was in Porter Creek. The three cut the logs and transported them to Snag with the help of the airport people. By the later 1950s, the small airports at Snag and Aishihik were no longer needed as the planes had a much longer range. Father Morisset built a church at Beaver Creek in 1962. The church was built from Quonset hut parts and other prefab buildings that he had torn down and moved to build the rectory. The materials were from a Bechtel-Price-Callahan camp - the company that built the Canol pipeline of 4" pipe.((Yukon Archives 92/14 SR131. Alaska Highway Interpretive Milepost Project, 1991. Helene Dobrowolsky interviewing Father Morisset, 24 September 1991.)) Father Morisset left the Burwash area in 1964.((H. Spruyt OMI, "Saint John the Evangelist - Champagne Yukon". September 1993. Unpublished manuscript.))