{"id":972,"date":"2025-12-06T16:29:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T16:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/?p=972"},"modified":"2025-09-28T21:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T21:26:05","slug":"filebishop-gordon-and-the-flying-blue-box-at-valdez-alaska-1953-jpg-wikimedia-commons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/06\/filebishop-gordon-and-the-flying-blue-box-at-valdez-alaska-1953-jpg-wikimedia-commons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blue Box: Episcopal Air Travel in Alaska"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bishop_Gordon_and_the__Flying_Blue_Box__at_Valdez_Alaska_1953.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-974\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bishop_Gordon_and_the__Flying_Blue_Box__at_Valdez_Alaska_1953.jpg?resize=640%2C391&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\" black and white photo of man standing in front of a small plane in the snow with snow covered mountains in the background \" width=\"640\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bishop_Gordon_and_the__Flying_Blue_Box__at_Valdez_Alaska_1953.jpg?w=960&amp;ssl=1 960w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bishop_Gordon_and_the__Flying_Blue_Box__at_Valdez_Alaska_1953.jpg?resize=300%2C183&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bishop_Gordon_and_the__Flying_Blue_Box__at_Valdez_Alaska_1953.jpg?resize=768%2C470&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a>William Gordon, the Episcopal bishop of Alaska, poses at Valdez with his airplane, &#8220;The Blue Box&#8221;. After taking office as bishop, Gordon spent two seasons following in the footsteps of his predecessors in getting around Alaska mostly by water transportation. After doing the math, he figured he would be better off learning to fly and visiting the church&#8217;s outposts by air. His first plane, dubbed &#8220;The Canary&#8221;, was very small and did not afford him much opportunity to transport passengers and supplies. This plane was given its name in honor of the &#8220;Blue Box&#8221; offering campaign initiated by the United Thank Offering, a fundraising ministry of women within the Episcopal Church.<\/p>\n<p>source: <a href=\"_wp_link_placeholder\" data-wplink-edit=\"true\">WikiMedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Gordon, the Episcopal bishop of Alaska, poses at Valdez with his airplane, &#8220;The Blue Box&#8221;. After taking office as bishop, Gordon spent two seasons following in the footsteps of his predecessors in getting around Alaska mostly by water transportation. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/06\/filebishop-gordon-and-the-flying-blue-box-at-valdez-alaska-1953-jpg-wikimedia-commons\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alaskagold.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}