Passage to Alaska

The Princess ‘Patricia, all six thousand tons of the old girl, cruises regularly every summer between British Columbia and Alaska, carrying 320 passengers and eighty crew by way of the Inland Passage from Vancouver to Skagway and return. As cruises go, a trip on the Pat cannot qualify as exciting, sophisticated, or exotic—none of the above—but it can be wonderfully restful for the person whose dearest desire is to travel two thousand miles without hearing a telephone ring.

The ship ends each cruise in Vancouver at 9 o’clock of a morning and departs anew at 8:30 that same evening. She offloads passengers, baggage, laundry, garbage, used playing cards, and the kind of trash that results from the inevitable masquerade ball; and she takes on new passengers, baggage, fuel oil, $30,000 worth of foodstuffs, and miscellaneous gear, down to a dozen rolls of crepe paper in various colors. The fire-drill discipline is the result of 16 years of practice. When it comes to profits, a cruise ship earns none at all in port. The Pat operates with the spare economy of Finnegan’s final report. Built in 1948 as a ferry, and remodeled in 1963 as a cruise ship, she long ago was paid for, free and clear. Her 151 staterooms bring in $302,000 per cruise. After deducting agency commissions and meeting operating expenses, the owners can count a tidy profit from 18 cruises every summer.

JJ

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James Jackson Kilpatrick

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The Princess ‘Patricia, all six thousand tons of the old girl, cruises regularly every summer between British Columbia and Alaska, carrying 320 passengers and eighty crew by way of the Inland Passage from Vancouver to Skagway and return. As cruises go, a trip on the Pat cannot qualify as exciting, sophisticated, or exotic—none of the above—but it can be wonderfully restful for the person whose dearest desire is to travel two thousand miles without hearing a telephone ring.

The ship ends each cruise in Vancouver at 9 o’clock of a morning and departs anew at 8:30 that same evening. She offloads passengers, baggage, laundry, garbage, used playing cards, and the kind of trash that results from the inevitable masquerade ball; and she takes on new passengers, baggage, fuel oil, $30,000 worth of foodstuffs, and miscellaneous gear, down to a dozen rolls of crepe paper in various colors. The fire-drill discipline is the result of 16 years of practice. When it comes to profits, a cruise ship earns none at all in port. The Pat operates with the spare economy of Finnegan’s final report. Built in 1948 as a ferry, and remodeled in 1963 as a cruise ship, she long ago was paid for, free and clear. Her 151 staterooms bring in $302,000 per cruise. After deducting agency commissions and meeting operating expenses, the owners can count a tidy profit from 18 cruises every summer.