ALASKA: A Pole at the Pole?

ALASKA A Pole at the Pole? Every child firmly believes that the North Pole is tall, striped like a barber pole, and has a ball on top. Stan Garson, an oil rigger at Alaska’s Point Barrow, hated to surrender this fancy. In the long Alaskan days & nights, he got to brooding. “All there is at the North Pole is some latitude and longitude,* he complained. “We really ought to have a pole.”

Stan, a man of action, hopped into a plane, flew down to Fairbanks, and went over to see his friends in the Estelle Machine Shop. There he talked and drew diagrams. That night, the Estelle gang worked until 4 in the morning, cutting and welding a nine-foot, piece of six-inch oil-well casing into a North Pole. As a final touch, a welder took his torch and wrote on the steel: “North Pole by Stan.” Next day, Stan and his friends lugged the 300-pound pole over to a sign company, got it enameled with gleaming red and white spirals. The ball was painted blue.

The next problem was to get the 58th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron to drop the pole from one of its B-29s on the drifting ice covering the North Pole. No, said Brigadier General Donald Smith. Stan’s pole was too big for the 58th’s bomb bays, which were filled with long-range gas tanks. But word got around. A Fairbanks radio commentator known as “North Pole Nelly” suggested that Santa Claus letters from Alaskan kids could be tossed out with the pole. Air Force wives were enthusiastic. Even General Smith’s wife pleaded for Stan. But the general still said no.

Last week an airline company came to Stan’s rescue. With an air of misty-eyed sentiment and only a sidelong glance for the attendant publicity, Alaska Airlines, Inc. announced that it would be glad to fly Stan’s pole and all Santa Claus letters on hand to the North Pole some time in November. Stan was jubilant. “There’ll be a pole at the North Pole if it’s the last thing I do,” said Stan.

*Half right: there is zero longitude at the Pole.