Did you know there was a second Japanese internment camp in Idaho?
The Kooskia Internment Camp was located about 30 miles east of Kooskia on Canyon Creek. The men housed there—and they were all men—worked on the construction of U.S. Highway 12.
The Kooskia camp was unique among camps in the U.S. in that those housed there volunteered for the assignment. They were men of Japanese ancestry who had been placed in other internment camps, but who had volunteered to go to Kooskia because they received wages of between $55 and $65 a month. The camp’s remote location meant there was not even the need for a fence around the Canyon Creek site.
A total of 256 men spent time working at the camp between May 1943 and May 1945. After the war, and with the completion of Highway 12, there was no need for the site. The buildings “walked” away or were torn down. Today only a concrete slab marks the site of the camp, which is on the Clearwater National Forest.
Some archaeological research has been done at the Kooskia Internment Camp, and Priscilla Wegars, PhD, has written extensively about the site. Her book As Rugged As The Terrain: CCC "Boys," Federal Convicts, And Alien Internees Wrestle With A Mountain Wilderness contains a detailed story of the camp as well as camps of different types in Idaho.