Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1914-03-11
D. |. STEBB|NS
TELLS STORY or
ALASKAN TRIP
FORMER ORLEANS BOY NOW
OPERATOR In REGULAR
ARMY.
WRITES OF MANY
THINGS OF INTEREST
I'm Storm at Sea, Sees Wonderful
Glacier at Valdez Almost
Rcpclling.

The following very Interesting letter
was written by y. l.. Stebbins, now In
the regular army, but well known as
the nephew of C. S. LaDow of Orleans,
to his brother LaDow Stebbins also of
Orleans. Through the courtesy OF
Mr.. LaDow we are enabled to publish
the letter which will appear in two
parts.
Seattle. Washington, Feb. 13, 1914.
Dear Brother
Your letter and aunt Ida's came to-
day, and l had just about given up all
hope OF ever hearing from You again.
Day before yesterday / mailed you
about twenty-five postcards all in
batch. Let me know If you get them
alright. When it comes to writing
letters, I've got to answer them the
day L receive them, or else they don't
get answered. When / lay one aside,
| generally forget it until l come
across il about two months later.
Well, j had some trip to Alaska. !
went on the u. s. Cableship Burnside
as wireless operator. We went up the
inside passage clear to ley Straights,
and then we went out on the Pacific
ocean. The cable was broken about
fifty miles from shore, and we were
seven days repairing it. And believe
me il was some rough. The boat tried
to stand on it's ear half of the time,
and when ii came to meal time, the
tables had racks on them to stop the
dishes from falling off. When we re-
paired the cable, we steamed south,
intending to go direct to Seattle, but
when about forty miles west OF Sit
ka, our boilers gave away, and we had
to put into Stka to repair them. We
were at Sitka three days altogether,
and while we were there, we got an
other message from Seattle, telling us
to go to Valdez and repair the cable
there. 1t seems that ii broke while
we were steaming south. The steam
ship Alameda was at the dock, and
while leaving there, a wind storm
came up, and she had to drop her an
Choir TO hold her to the dock. When
they got ready to pull out for Seattle.
they pulled up the anchor pulling up
the cable with II, and breaking il in
several places. OF course that meant
another ten days work for us. We
left Sitka, and went right out into the
ocean, while ii was some rough. 1t
was then that I felt nearer feeding the
fishes than j had the whole trip, CT
hadn't been sick so far but l wealth
cred II out
The boat pitched and rolled some
thing awful, and big waves broke clean
over the bridge, which is fifty feet
from the water, so you can see what
kind OF a storm ii was. Waves were
splashing up against the wireless
house. and il wasn't safe for one to go
on deck unless you had a rope tied
around you, and an able bodied sea-
man sat the other end. When ] was
sitting I'm the chair in the wireless
house, with the receivers on my head,
(you know we wear receivers like a
telephone girl when we work wire
less) all of sudden the boat gave a
lurch, and ! found myself, chair
electric heater. and few other things
clear across the room up against the
wall. Bang, and right back / bounced
TO where started from. In the course
of few dozen times, / got used to it,
and after awhile IL got to be quite a
lot OF fun to slide across the floor in
the chair, and then slide back.
The cord on the wireless receivers
was about eight feet long so ] didn't
have to remove them at all. You see
there is a United States law that says
that there shall be a wireless operator
on duty all the while. There were
three of US, we worked three hours,
and then were off six hours. So you
see the time was pretty evenly divided,
and what time we were not on duty
we were in the hay, and believe me,
the motion Of the boat rocks you to
sleep as easy and nice as could be.
The storm lasted three days, and we
were bucking right into ii all the time,
so we did not make much Roadway.
Finally we turned north, and at last
we found ourselves in smooth waters
again. We anchored for the night.
because there were many dangerous
rocks in Prince William Sound, and
we did not want to take any chances.
The next morning we started out about
three n. m, and at nine o'clock we
were just pulling into Valdez harbor.
The glacier lies behind the town
and looked very green and in fact al
most supernatural; to see 1t hanging
back over the town it looked like
some great Shiny thing ready to strike.
In fact it was almost repelling. /
can't see how the people there can
stand it, but l guess they are used to