They came north like a storm surge of humanity, those wartime workers driven by the forces of World War II. Men and women, black and white, civilian and military, they outnumbered and effectively overwhelmed the largely Native population of Canada's northwest. Under harsh and unfamiliar conditions, they built what the war effort needed - airfields, roads, pipelines. Then, like a storm tide when the winds have passed, they receded from the North, leaving both the terrain and themselves forever changed.