| Summary: | Son Follows Father's Steps: Will Continue Hazardous Missionary Work Among North Alaskan Natives. SON FOLLOWS FATHER'S STEPS Will Continue Hazardous Missionary Work Among North Alaskan Natives. SEATTLE, Nov. 17. OP)—With one victory over the treacherous Arctic ice pack to his credit, Captain John Backland Jr., youthful master of the four-masted schooner C. S. Holmes, will continue his father's trading and missionary work among the northern Alaska natives. For 21 years Captain John Backland Sr., a former minister, braved the dangers of the Arctic ocean to carry supplies to missionaries stationed along the northern coast of Alaska and to trade with the Eskimo fur trappers. The elder Backland also kept up his religious work, preaching to the natives at times. Illness forced the trader to remain home last spring and his son, 26, took command of the schooner. When the young captain arrived at Point Barrow, northernmost tip of Alaska, he learned of his father's death. A radio report had reached the village. Captain Backland and his hardy crew of 11 experienced the greatest hardships of their voyage at Point Barrow. For 10 days, the Holmes was locked in the ice pack beached the ship. The vessel creaked and groaned under the tremendous pressure of the ice, but was finally released with the aid of dynamite when a warm wind started an ice breakup. The trip into the Arctic was the eighth for Captain Backland, who went north seven times with his father, the last time as first mate. He was graduated from University of Washington last spring and because of his father's death, the young captain abandoned plans to enter Oxford. Although not an ordained minister, Backland plans to continue the missionary work as well as the trading end of the enterprise.
|
|---|