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Show OLD ALASKA CUTTER IS JAMMED IN ICE Exiles in North Will Wait in Vain for Yearly Visit. Washington. The venerable coast guard cutter, the Bear, has made its last journey to the Arctic. It is pinched in the ice somewhere 1,000 miles north of Unalaska, two propellers propel-lers are broken, it has a score of dents in its side and headquarters has radioed ra-dioed order to give up, to return home from the fiftieth annual cruise into the Far North. So "Healy's puk oomiak" will not take the mail and the messages from civilization to Point Barrow this year. The old vessel, named Healy's Fire Canoe by the natives wdien Captain Healy used to guide it Into the northern north-ern waters, no more will brighten the lives of those lost from the world for a year at a time. It has been branded unsafe, unseaworthy, and when it gets back to the States, If it does, its last voyage will be ended. It will be dismantled. dis-mantled. It was on May 2 that the Bear, In command of Captain Cochran, steamed away from the Golden Gate. Its skipper skip-per bore the usual broad instructions "To aid all peoples, to assist commerce, com-merce, to open lines of communication," communica-tion," and last, but one of its most important im-portant duties, "to carry the mail to every village not reached by the Bering Ber-ing sea patrol." The farthest north of these is Point Barrow. Half a dozen times In June the Bear was caught in the ice. Men acquainted with the north, brawny and willing, freed it and it sought another means of egress, but July 5 found it facing "heaviest ice" and a day later it was held fast again. Although Captain Cochran's last message indicated his belief that he would have little difficulty in returning return-ing as soon as ice conditions permit, Rear Admiral Billard, the commandant, and others at coast guard headquarters fear that the old boat may not emerge safely. Congress was asked at its last session ses-sion to appropriate money for a new craft to replace the Bear, but the bill got lost in the jam. Its sister ships, the Thetis and the Resolute, long ago were dismantled, but not until each had served for years. |