The Arab Shack
If you look at the photo very carefully, you will see a building to the right of the 2 Wing sign - and this building was called the "Arab (Eh-Rab) Shack". This was erected by some entrepreneur as a watering hole or canteen for the Moroccan laborers that built the station. Most of these labourers were gone when I arrived at Grostenquin on 6 April 1955, but a few of them remained.
The principle customers for the "Shack" when I got there were the airmen. My friend Dave Giesbrecht introduced me to this place - and to Mousseaux (sp?) - the day after my arrival. Drinking the foul French beer for a couple of hours, and sweetening it up with Mousseaux, gave me the biggest hangover that I had ever had in my life to that point in time.
Everybody at the section had a laugh on me that morning, and I quickly found out that the "Arab Shack" was the initiation place, and the combination of Mousseaux and beer was the initiation potion.
Sometime in 1955, this building just disappeared. I don't have an inkling as to when exactly it was dismantled but one thing is for sure. Most if not every airman that arrived on the station between 1952 and 1955 knew of the famous or infamous "Arab Shack"