Joe Plaine Father Joe Plaine was a Catholic priest based in Fort McPherson where he studied the local Gwich’in language. He established the Old Crow Mission in 1951 with Father Buliard and visited and accompanied the RCMP to Herschel Island and the DEW line stations.((Helene Dobrowolsky interview with Father Tanguay, November 8, 1989. YG Heritage Branch files.)) Father Plaine travelled from Old Crow to Herschel Island with three other mushers: a local guide, an RCMP officer, an Inuvialuit man and thirty dogs. He and his dogs made the trip back to Old Crow on his own.((Michael Dougherty, "He Came, He Saw, He Built." //The Yukoner Magazine,// Issue No. 30, September 2005: 50.)) Father Plaine was later stationed in Atlin.((Helene Dobrowolsky interview with Father Tanguay, November 8, 1989. YG Heritage Branch files.))