As Rugged as the Terrain: Ccc Boys, Federal Convicts, and World War II Alien Internees Wrestle with a Mountain Wilderness

As Rugged as the Terrain explores some intriguing history of Idaho’s wild and scenic Lochsa River. In 1893 this site, at turbulent Canyon Creek, was a footnote in the saga of the ill-fated Carlin hunting party. Next, in 1933, it housed nearly two hundred tent-dwelling Civilian Conservation Corps recruits, most of whom were city slickers from New York State whose antics provide a colourful tableau of young men on their own and far from home.

In 1935 the site became Federal Prison Camp No. 11, a road-building facility for convicts mostly from the Leavenworth, Kansas, penitentiary. Although the authorities stressed rehabilitation rather than punishment, the camp’s unsecured status (it had no fence) did allow several thrilling escapes.

After the prison camp closed in May 1943, Japanese detainees at the Kooskia Internment Camp continued road construction for two more years. Several chapters in As Rugged as the Terrain document the Japanese internees’ story as compared with the experiences of Italian and German internees in the vicinity. This volume features 110 illustrations, notes, appendices, a bibliography and an index.