| Summary: | Alaska's Santa Is Strike-Bound: Steamer Yukon Tied Up In Seattle While Northern Children Await St. Nick. Alaska's Santa Is Strike-Bound Steamer Yukon Tied Up In Seattle While Northern Children Await St. Nick SEATTLE, Dec. 23. (/P)—Alaska's Santa Claus, who reverses the usual order by going from south to north each year, was strike-bound here today, with $2,000 worth of candy and gifts intended to brighten the Yuletide for 6,500 Alaska children. Already 10 days past sailing time, it appeared unlikely Santa would be able to make his usual northern rounds at least until after the Pacific Coast maritime strike ended, and, in any event, after Christmas. Today the Christmas ship, the Alaska Steamship company's steamer Yukon, lay silently at its west Seattle moorings. The ship's Santa Claus, George Pointer a six-foot, 200-pounder, rehearsed his role in a department store. Children Wait. And Alaska's children looked vainly toward the south, from whence they knew Santa came in the past. This year's Santa Claus cruise was to have been the fourth successive one. The ship in former years docked at numerous tiny Alaska coast hamlets where children came aboard to greet Santa, receive gifts and be entertained by the ship's orchestra and carolers. Then, at Seward Santa and his aides took the Alaska Railroad train inland to Anchorage and last year to the Matanuska colony at Palmer, also halting at all the whistle stops and sidings —anywhere there might be children, native or white. The First ships Out Ken Cross, the company's traffic agent said today Santa definitely would make the trip this season, and that the Yukon, Santa's sea-going "sleigh," would be the first to depart as soon as the strike ended. Cross said he hoped the ship would be able to reach Alaska by January 7, when many Alaskans celebrate Christmas on the Russian date of observance, a custom handed down from the days before 1867 when Alaska was ruled by the Russians.
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