Menu

Yukon Nuggets

  • Odin Hougen cooking for a survey crew, 1942.

  • Rolf Hougen took this photo of his high school classmates, grades 9-12, 1944.

1944 Hougen's history

Odin Hougen

In 1942, Odin Hougen was a cook with a survey crew working on the Alaska Highway. Subsequently, he operated the door to door Rawleigh Products Agency. When he left Whitehorse in early 1944 to join the Canadian navy, his father Berent Hougen took over the Agency.


Many American school students were sons and daughters of people who worked for Standard Oil of California. Standard Oil of California built the oil refinery in Whitehorse which opened on April 30th and quickly closed as the oil was no longer needed for the war efforts. The refinery was dismantled and trucked to the newly discovered oil field near Leduc, Alberta. The four inch pipeline which ran from Norman Wells, NWT to Whitehorse, Yukon was also dismantled and shipped to Alberta.