The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-01-08
STEAMSHIPS
 :SANTAS WIN Z HIGH PRAISE
New York Pays Tribute to Alaska Steam ship and
 Northland Transportation
By JIM MARSHALL
(From the New York Herald Tri-
 BAne, December 22, IS35)

(FFom the New York Herald Tri-
 bane, December 22, 1S35)
 Maybe it's like the picture books and the posters and the greeting cards portray told Kris Kringle in his high-heaped curyy sleigh roaring down out of the horthland behind half dozen galloping rein deer. Maybe it's so-but you can't make 10000 Alaskan youngsters be- lieve it. For quarter of the Ter ritorys 60,000 people, Santa Claus comes in a ship from Outside, ' and don't try to tell the little Nordis towheads or the red headed lrish-Alaskan youngster or the roly- poly black-haired Indian boys and girls different They know better.
 SEvery year Puget Sound, the jumpin-off place for Alaska, puts on this great ocean-going Christ mas pary. It lasts for mere than two weeks. It heaves and plunges and rolls across 5000 miles of the Pacific It carries Santa Claus and the Christmas spirit to fishing vil- lages, mining towns, canneries and many lonely beach cabins along the mountain walled reaches of the h. side Passage and log houses set back among the frs and spruces singing in the sou WeSter bowling across the Gulf of Alaska.
 Since the first Christmases in Alaska 130 years ago, when Alex ander Andrevich Baranoff, Lord oi Alaska, celebrated the Yuletide with wild drinking bouts in his great fort at New Archangel-today called Sitka-the Northwest coast has always roared through its Yule- tides. In the mining camps and fishing villages hospitality ran free ly when the ships came in, and if there weren't always turkey and cranberries, there were moose-nose and red salmon steamed in sea- weed and preserves made from the berries that overloaded the bushes in summer.
 For years the men who manned the ships between Seattle and AL aska had been putting on informal Christmas parties at whichever port tide and schedule happened to land them on the Great Day. Then, few years ago, somebody got the notion it would be cheer full thing to stage an ocean-g going Christmas party; take the old spirit up there through the passages and into the inlets, across the Gulf to Latouche and then to Seward and !Cordova. yae
 So stevedores loaded couple of ships with gifts, orchestras were engaged, singers volunteered, sea- men lashed green frs to mast heads and tough eggs, drafted from fthe waterfront, were padded and bcastumed into, replicas of Santa E VI t
 Claus tss %s.Fs ! A few shipping office cyriics said lit was just business-getting stunt. He'll" exploded an eye-shaded traffic manager, If I wanted to ! drum business, I'd just load a few cases of Scotch aboard and have the traders down for a drink. This is for the women and kids.ra ss
 For sixty hours, the ship spins wake to the north. Then, five miles out of Ketchikan, Captain Carl V. Westerlund of the Alaska gets the passengers around the piano in the salon. Ken Cross ,and Beatrice Nelson, singers who ihave come along to lead the cilor- fuses. get underway. The loud- Speaker system is turned on, and iup the channel, to the crowd waiting on the wharf, comes the first whisper of Christmas. The wooded shores echo the music as 1.-the ship sticks her nose around lthe point and slides to a stop. |The heavy lines thump on the wharf floor and the blanks are ! out +
 The schools have been closed for the day. They might as well be, because no kid would miss the ] party, anyway. They charge aboard. hundreds strong. Mir Corcoran, AL Naska Steamship Company Santa Claus, a trifle nervous during his debut in a stellar role, hands out candy and oranges and apples and toys. He keeps on doing this for hours.
 At Wrangell more droves of chil- dren and more battalions of men and women pile aboard. Chance brings the Alaska alongside Cap tain Leonard Williams little motor