Why Santa Claus uses reindeer for his sleigh

Seagoing cowboy and print-shop owner John Wesley Clay published a book of stories and poems he wrote on his trip with a load of horses to Poland on the S. S. Occidental Victory at age 66 in late 1946.

John Wesley Clay aboard the S. S. Occidental Victory, December 1946. Photo by Norman Weber.

In comparing Clay’s stories in High Adventure with the diary account of the cowboy he calls “Shorty,” I’ve come to realize that his tellings are a mixture of fact and fiction. Keeping that in mind, I thought this would be the perfect day to share with you his take on why Santa Claus uses reindeer for his sleigh.

After unloading the horses sent to Poland by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the Occidental Victory went on to Finland to unload 6,000 tons of sugar at Turku. Then the ship traveled on around the Gulf of Finland to Kotka, a city in an area of logging and pulp mills, to pick up ballast in the form of either pulp or newsprint for the trip home. Here begins Clay’s tale, when he says he took a train north, desiring to visit Lapland.

“I found eighteen inches of snow in Lapland. It was a sleet-like snow, and your feet do not sink in as they do in snows of warmer climates,” Clay says. A man who spoke some English took him in for the night and fed him reindeer stew. The next morning, after a breakfast of reindeer steak, the man arranged for a Lapland taxi – “a very large buck reindeer hitched to a sleigh” – to take Clay to a reindeer ranch about twenty miles away. Clay says,

       I do not know if you have ever seen a jet plane in action. It streaks along so fast that it is gone before you hear the sound thereof. Well, that is exactly what I was reminded of when our reindeer got his pace. He laid his antlers back over his shoulders, stuck his long nose forward, and the way he skimmed over the landscape was amazing. He took long, graceful strides apparently with perfect ease, and as the narrow runners of the sleigh skimmed over the sleet-like snow they sang the shrillest little song and set fine spray that peppered my face like a needle bath. It was the most thrilling ride I had ever had, and then it was that I understood why Santa Claus uses the reindeer for his motive power. We got to our destination in just two hours, and after we had dismounted and stretched ourselves we heard the jingle of the sleigh bells coming in. Like the jet plane we had left them far behind.

Now folks, that is a slight stretch of the imagination. I am given to telling tall tales, but this voyage was so filled with thrills and adventure from beginning to end that I have had no need to use my imagination. I indulge this once from force of habit.

May the jingle of sleigh bells catch up to you this Christmas Eve.
Wishing my readers Blessings of the Season.

 

A Seagoing Cowboy’s Poem for Advent

John Wesley Clay, seagoing cowboy on the three-month fateful voyage of the S. S. Occidental Victory [dubbed “Accidental Victory”], had lots of free time to write. His closing poem in his book High Adventure which he published about his trip seems a fitting post during this time of Advent with its themes of Peace and Love.

IT TAKES A HEAP O’ TRAVELLIN’

It takes a heap o’ travellin’
In this world to know it well;
A heap o’ sure enough travellin’
Where the other peoples dwell.

John Wesley Clay on right, with Norman Weber, center, and unidentified cowboy aboard the S. S. Occidental Victory, October 1946. Photo courtesy of Norman Weber.

You must see ’em in their homes,
See ’em at their work and play;
Afore you understand ’em
You must see ’em while they pray.

Customs officer and his family, Oliwa, Poland, October 1946. Photo by Norman Weber.

It takes a heap ‘o travellin’
Over sea and over land;
To understand their actions,
And their motives understand.

Two “persistent beggars–likeable kids,” Gdansk, Poland, October 1946. Photo by Norman Weber.

For other folks are strange folks,
Until you know ’em well;
But when you learn to love ’em,
You find ’em fine and swell.

Vaino Aksanen and his boys at summer home of Tsar, Kotka, Finland, November 1946. Photo courtesy of Norman Weber.

You find ’em fine and swell and good,
As you profess to be;
And if you learn to know ’em well,
Then wars would cease to be.

Children in Bremen, Germany, December 1946. Photo by Norman Weber.

Yes, it takes a heap o’ travellin’
Over sea and over land;
To build that noble brotherhood,
And claim the Promised Land.

 

 

S. S. Park Victory story continues in Finland

The story of the S. S. Park Victory, including its years after World War II as the transporter of livestock and seagoing cowboys to Europe, is now on display in Kotka, Finland. The Maritime Museum of Finland, located in the Maritime Centre Vellamo, opened a Park Victory exhibition on November 7, 2018. Posters and artifacts of diver, historian, and author Jouko Moisala hold a prominent place as one approaches the ultramodern building completed in 2008.

The S. S. Park Victory exhibit is prominently displayed to pedestrians and drivers alike. Photo: Jouko Moisala.

The Maritime Centre Vellamo sheds light on S. S. Park Victory history. Photo: Jouko Moisala.

The Centre is named after the Finnish mythological goddess of water, lakes, and the seas. The massive structure shimmers like the sea and evokes the power of the ocean with its wave-like shape. The exhibition runs through January 25, 2019.

S. S. Park Victory exhibit, Kotka, Finland, November 2018. Photo courtesy of Jouko Moisala.

Jouko Moisala at his S. S. Park Victory exhibit, November 2018. The painting in the upper left is the one I delivered to Jouko this past July. Photo courtesy of Jouko Moisala.

From the seagoing cowboy perspective, Kotka is a fitting place for this exhibition. It was the last port visited by the ill-fated S. S. Occidental Victory before it encountered a rock in the Gulf of Finland on its way home, preventing the cowboys from being with their families that Thanksgiving of 1946. This ship, however, unlike the Park Victory, did make its way back to the USA.

As for the rescued Park Victory lifeboat, Jouko Moisala informs me that it “is at last safe inside a place to clean it with sand. I can get an old ‘Champion’ to do it and I am only an assistant.” Kudos to Jouko for preserving and sharing all of this Park Victory history!