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Student Says - Life Can Be Thrilling—in Alaska
Friday. April 17, 1953 University Daily Kansan Page 11
Underwood had already spent one summer as a Minnesota fishing guide and two more guiding fishing parties on the Minnesota-Canada border, when he heard of the Alaskan job two years ago.
The "plot" grew more threatening when they found themselves situated between two rocky reefs. It would have been simple to pilot the craft away from the dangerous barriers, but the engine's oil line had developed a leak. Without oil, the engine was sure to overheat and be useless.
The lifeboat would have been useless in the heavy sea. Underwood said, "It was very frightening for a while, but we managed after about 45 minutes to make it into a sheltered bay."
By PAT MITCHELL
While hitchhiking through Montana, he was picked up by a man who had contacts with the Fish and Wildlife service and who furnished Underwood with the addresses of persons to consult.
Junius "Sonny" Underwood, business junior, lived to tell of a situation reminiscent of the old-time movie thriller which arose while he was skipper of a fishing patrol boat in Alaskan coastal waters last summer.
Underwood's assistant on the patrol boat was Arthur Sheets, student at Oregon State University. The two lived three weeks in Kodiak, before their boat was ready to make the 100-mile run to the patrol area.
"My first night in Kodiak I went to bed early," Underwood remembered. "I was sure I had overslept when I awoke and saw it was light outside, so I got dressed fast and went downtown for breakfast."
With a thick, blinding fog blanketing their boat, he and his assistant were caught in the middle of a large bay by a sudden storm. As their anchor had shifted, the compass was off several degrees, making it impossible to tell their exact position.
"I couldn't figure why the streets were so deserted until I saw a clock and found it was only 2 a.m. I had forgotten there are only two or three hours of semi-darkness during the summer up there."
Underwood and Sheets patrolled a 75-100 miles square area to see that no fishing took place in illegal waters, no illegal equipment was used, and no fishing was done during closed periods.
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Underwood said he met some interesting characters in his work. One was a watchman on a fish trap in summer and a California bootleger during the winter.
"He was very friendly and a wonderful person to know." Underwood said, "always giving us food and seeming eager for companionship. He talked freely, too, and told us about the 'thief market' in San Francisco, where stolen goods are bartered. He told me he could get me anything I wanted there, from a washing machine to a diamond ring—all for next to nothing."
Another such watchman met was a Norwegian student now at the University of South Carolina. He had combatted the German occupation during World War II as a member of the underground.
On bluffs along salmon streams
"I wouldn't advise anyone to go up there without a job thought." Underwood said, "because living expenses are awfully high."
the boys found many relics left by Eskimos of earlier centuries. They found beads, pottery fragments, tools of stone, human bones, and many other things they might have wished to bring home, "but it was against the law to molest them," Underwood said.
Pay for work on the patrol boat was good, he said. Although he gossiped about $1,000 for the summer, a whole season would bring $4,400 plus $2.50 a day living allowance.
Air Force ROTC camp will take his summer this year, Underwood said, "but I'd like to go back to Alaska. It's a wonderful way to spend a summer."
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