The Wrangell sentinel., 1929-11-21
SCANDINAVIANS
 OFTEN HOST"
Swedish Consulate Takes Steps to Keep Track of Scandinavians of Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

SEATTLE--A port of missing men is being established by the Swedish Consulate in this city in an effort to keep the large numbers of Scan dinavian fishermen and loggers of Washington and Alaska from be- coming lost"
 Already more than 200 men have registered at the Consulate, and will in the future consider it their permanent address. Thus friends and relatives in the "old country" will be able to communicate with these woodsmen and fishermen of the Pacific Northwest, including Alaska, who frequently have no regular place to receive mail.
 In the past the several Scandina- vian consulates of this vicinity, the Scandinavian Seamen's Mission, the Salvation Army and the Volunteers of America have been almost daily asked to help locate some fisherman or logger who has become lost to the homefolks. The indefiniteness of the work has made statistics diff ficult, but the number of such dis appearances has been surprisingly large.
 These wandering boys" being mostly fishermen, loggers and sail ors, have no fixed home. They move from camp to camp or they depend upon the seasonal work of Alaska or follow the sea. Being men of ac- tion, letter writing comes hard. They are not indifferent, but casual about leaving their change of ad- dress. After a time they become Host" to the people in the "old country"
 A frequent cause of not being able to find them is that they either change their names or Angli- cize them. "Fridolf Berg" may have had the fanciful notion of changing his name to Erred Hill' the word "hill" being "berg" in Swedish. Jonas Oberg" is finally located as "Jim O'Berry and Karl Johansson" is found as Charlie Jones'"
 Between jobs or in off seasons these men congregate in Seattle and there on the "Skidroad" which is their name for the street where they gather, they may be seen mill ing up and down by the thousands, here today and gone tomorrow.
 Many of them make their head quarters in Japanese rooming houses for if the logging camps of the Pacific Northwest are largely manned by Scandinavians the room ing houses are run by Japanese and "The Stockholm Hotel" is more than likely to be run by MT. Hata- guchi, MT. Kawasaka or MT. Yama guchi. These proprietors are found to be most kind and solicitous of the welfare of their big Nordic guests, forwarding their mail, and holding their trunks, sometimes for years.
 Advertising in the papers is one usual method of searching for miss ing men and the Norwegian paper, published in Seattle, Washington Posten, has for 25 years carried these advertisements. The Norwe- gian government also advertises for her sailor sons and other wanderers who have inherited money. The magazine Western Stories carries an active Host men" section and if John Johnson does not see the ad- one of his friends may, for "word-of-mouth" is often the means of locating men.
 The Scandinavian Seamans Mis- sions do an immeasurably humani- tarian work in making contacts be- tween parents and lost sons, and the Salvation Army because of it's in is able to make all most phenomenal locations of men who have been lost for years.
 Not all the wandering boys" of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska are Scandinavians. A recent case was that of Scotsman returned to his sister after years of absence, the contact being made through the Salvation Army in Seattle and Glas- Oom