White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1926-09-24
SONG or TUE WINDS"
DOCKS here AGAIN

Only few of those who heard the
siren whistle late Sunday afternoon
kne4 that 1t heraldsd the passage of
the Song Of the Winds" carrying its
lowner, Amos Burg Jr., of Portland
and Fred a. Hill, OF Spokane, who
we're travelling the Columbia river By
canoe from source to mouth.
Young burg made the same trip by
canoe one in the early winter of 1924
and by the same conveyance has
covered 1000 miles Of, Ame1ica11
rivers, including the Snake. Besides
beng a navigator he is writer and
photographer.
On the trip down Sunday the
young men stopped for rest at
Henry Allard's and Mr.. Burg left tae
following interesting account of the
trip for the Spokesman
To-day I dropped into Allard's on
the tail end otaa 800 mile canos
voyage from, Skagway, Alaska, with a
companion, Fred A. Hill, who has
been an officer on the American
Oriental line for two years to China
and Japan. We shipped north on the
S. S. Queen from Seattle June l.,
arriving in Skagway, on June Z. the
next morning we cast our lines and
headed south down the Lynn canal
ani Icy straits, taking motion pictures
of tn. glaciers and lie fields and hunt
ing black and brown bears with a
shotgun.
"Iiigh tides bothered us great
deal as they were always in and out
at the wrong time. 1t rained 50 hard
down the coast that we could fll our
water bottle by leaving the cork on
"The inside passage is Sheltered
from the sterner regions of the PACING
bv numerous islands, which were all
blue fox farms. In Alaska it it isn't
a fox farm it isn't an island. The
mouths of inlets were dangerous, as
the treacherous ebb tides sweeping
out of the inland bays would some
times plunge us in breakers so high
that at times we could not see the
shore.
"After a perilous forty day passage
of five per cent sunshine and 70 per
cent rain, we nosed the Song OF the
Winds" into the current of the Fraser
river and from there portrayed to the
headwaters of the Columbia at Upper
Columbia Lake.
"It was a pleasanter voyage than l
experienced two years ago when the
ice blocked me at The Dalles and l
had to buy ear rnuffs. The supreme
thrill of the voyage came below the
third pitch of Surprise rapids on the
Big Bend in Canada, when we battled
for twenty minutes in the terrific back
current of an eddy that was carrying
us into some breakers brawling around
a giant rock in a narrow canyon with
a,two miles stretch Of falls and rapids
below. In thin, business always fear
what lies beyond the present danger
1t is not so bad to slip on banana
pee,ing but if the fall will pitch you
off bluff, it's not SO good.
1--WE expect to reach Portland tor
next Sundays dinner. It's not the
dinner of COURSE. just the sentiment.
am certainly indebted to Henry AL
lard and his family for their hospital
ity, but find that to be typical OF your
country. You may find it hard to
believe but never forget person
Friendship seems like seed that
blossoms inG.de of me. love the
view from his ranch, the wide expanse
of arid plains with the Rattlesnake
and Saddle mountains meeting the
azure blue of the heavens. (Very
originally :.
'1As for the work I am trying to do
I am just laying my irrigation bitches.
A person is like farm for he needs
a back ground before crops can be
planted. People watch for results
but just because fellow doesn't make
a splash like hippopotamus' taking a
Jack knife off spring board is no
sign he is not building something. But
haven't lost sight of the fact that in
playing to win something, the game
is judged by the final s':ore."