Although Christmas occurs during winter, a man from Seattle, Washington once proved it can be celebrated all year long. The holiday spirit was on display each summer at the beginning of the 20th century when Captain John Backland Sr. made trips to the Far North to supply churches and schools.
Captain Backland, acting as a sort of Santa Clause, set sail each May for the Barrow, Alaska, serving a number of northwestern Alaska villages along the way. People living on the remote Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas, as well as the Arctic Ocean, relied on his Midnight Sun Trading Company to bring an entire year's worth of supplies. "Backland's Back," was often heard in his ports of call. The arrival of his boat triggered a festive mood in each settlement.
Captain Backland brought a series of ships to the north. In 1906 he purchased a 125-ton, two-masted vessel called the Volante and then spent the remainder of his life bringing goods to the people of the Arctic. Backland was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and refused to transport alcohol. He viewed his work as a duty as well as a business.
In 1907 he deemed the Volante too small and purchased a 547-ton, four-masted schooner named the Transit. Sadly, this craft became trapped in the frozen seas off Barrow and was grounded and destroyed in 1913. Captain Backland and his crew were forced to seek refuge by trekking over treacherous ice.
Backland was undeterred, and the next year he purchased a 623-ton, four-masted schooner called the C.S. Holmes.
Nineteen-year-old John Backland Jr. began accompanying his father on the annual, five-month trip from Seattle to Barrow in 1921. He became captain of the C.S. Holmes in 1928, at the age of 26, after the elder Backland became deathly ill. He continued the goodwill trading established by his dad for another 10 years.
While the Backlands played the part of Santa Claus for the northern inhabitants, the C.S. Holmes acted as their sleigh. The ship had no inboard, mechanical means of propulsion, but instead relied on sails for maneuvering through the open water. The C.S. Holmes utilized two 24-foot motorboats to guide it through the labyrinth of ice in the Arctic Ocean. The long ropes these escorts used to tow their burden resembled reindeer tuglines pulling Santa's sled.
Just as the elves of the North Pole help Santa get ready for Christmas, the crew of the C.S. Holmes prepared the ship for each upcoming trading season. Many suppliers, including the Seattle Hardware Company, Pacific Coast Coal Company, National Grocery Company, and Stuart and Holmes Drug Company, made deliveries to fill orders placed by the Backlands.
"Christmas and the coming of our ship are the two big events in the lives of the whites and Natives," Captain Backland Jr. once declared. "This isn't like the old days when traders exchanged valueless beads and simple, colorful trinkets for precious furs. Those days are gone."
A wave of skin-covered umiaks was paddled or sailed out to the C.S. Holmes as soon as it anchored offshore. They were like children flocking to the tree on Christmas morning. Fresh fruit and vegetables were the favorite presents.
Other articles stowed in Captain Backland's cargo bays were radios, record players, groceries, medicine, guns, ammunition, clothing, trapping supplies, outboard motors, bolts of cloth, needles and thread, lumber, chewing gum, and hard candy. Getting "a lump of coal for Christmas" was desired, as the C.S. Holmes delivered many tons of this valuable heating fuel.
The C.S. Holmes brought the first car, tractor, and snow machine to the Far North. It also delivered a motorcycle to the Presbyterian minister in Barrow, who swapped out the front wheel for a ski. The disassembled Wainwright Presbyterian Church, capable of seating 400 to 500 people, was added to the general freight in 1936. A shipment of "knock-down" shelter cabins was delivered to the Alaska Road Commission in Point Lay.
The C.S. Holmes typically first visitied Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island. It then made stops at Wales, Shishmaref, Kotzebue, Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright and Barrow on the mainland. She did not have a common carrier permit to bring freight south. For the most part, other than furs and ivory procured through trade, she returned empty. On the 1936 voyage, however, Captain Backland was contracted to retrieve the engine from the fatal Wiley Post/Will Rogers plane crash in Barrow.
The sailing of the C.S. Holmes took place during a transitional period in the history of maritime Arctic travel. She was the last sail-only vessel to make the trip north for purposes of trade. Although the C.S. Holmes ventured in summer, the Arctic weather seemed Christmas-like to the crew. A small coal stove in the forecastle provided the only heat for the ship's working men.
Captain Backland Jr. and the C.S. Holmes made their last trip to Barrow in 1937. The U.S. government confiscated the ship three years later. It cut the masts off and used this once glorious vessel as a barge during World War II.
