Chapter 3: FAIRBANKS AND THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAIRBANKS AND THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

 

 

The whole purpose of this doctoral thesis is to project the problems involved in bringing two different cultures and races together in the membership of a single congregation and to offer a solution to how it can become a possibility.

 

In the first chapter, the history of the missionary work among the Native people in general and the Eskimo people in particular is described.  Chapter two dealt with the movement of the white people, in significant numbers into the state and how the church affected a ministry to them.

 

This chapter is an account of the history of the only Presbyterian Church in Alaska where white and Eskimo people have come together in a congregation in significant numbers.  One cannot understand how the present model evolved unless one is acquainted with the history of First Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks.

 

From the Gold Rush to World War II, 1902-1942

 

Late in the summer of 1901, Captain E.T. Barnette decided to take a steamer, the Lavelle Young, up the Tanana River to trade.  He wanted to reach a place where the Tanana crossed the Valdez-to-Eagle trail, for some reason he turned into the Chena River and went upstream to the place where Fairbanks now stands.[1]

 

Felix Pedro saw the smoke of the steamer and went to meet it.  He told Barnette he had found some promising placer deposits in the creeks in the vicinity, and So Barnette and his partner, Smith, erected a log trading post, the first building to be constructed in what is now Fairbanks.[2]

 

The news of the Fairbanks strike soon spread and during the winter of 1902-1903, the stampeders headed for the new diggings.  They came from Dawson, Nome, and Circle City.  There were “tradesmen and liquor dealers, gamblers, and the male and female parasites of the miners.”[3]

 

At first, all was confusion.  Crates of merchandise, kegs of been, barrels of whiskey, lumber, horses, cattle, and household goods all mingled in grand disorder.  Sawmills buzzed day and night cutting lumber for sluice boxes.  Men moved the mining machinery out to the claims.  Sheet iron warehouses of the Northern Commercial Company were springing up.

 

            Two or three blocks back from the waterfront, in the red-light district the

            dance-hall girls held their crowds, and after each dance, the girls and their

            partners swaggered up to the bar, with their foot on the rail, leaned over and

            ordered to suit their thirst, each girl getting her commission on the order.[4]

 

All day and night roulette wheels spun and the faro dealer dealt the cards.

 

Prices were high.  Sandwiches were a dollar each.  Yukon stoves were selling for $45.  Baking powder biscuits went $2 a dozen.[5]  Gold was $16 an ounce.

 

When the rush to Fairbanks was on, the Rev. Egbert Koonce, the Presbyterian missionary at Rampart, set out for Chena, a mining camp which had spring up a few miles southwest of Fairbanks at the mouth of the Tanana and Chena Rivers.  He immediately built a mission cabin and preached the first sermon ever heard in the Tanana Valley.[6]

 

The Presbyterians continued their work at Chena, neglecting Fairbanks, because they believed Chena would become the center of the gold mining and trading area.  In March of 1903, the Rev. Charles Ensign, stationed at Eagle, came to Chena and built a long building which he used for a church and hospital.[7]

 

Before he returned to Eagle, he conducted Sunday services in Marson’s saloon in Fairbanks where the proprietor had spread a white sheet over the glasses and decanters.  An Episcopal priest, the Rev. C. E. Rice, also conducted services in the same saloon that Sunday and together he and Ensign conducted church services before “the entire population of the new town.”[8]

 

The Rev. H.M. Frank was commissioned to serve the new mission at Chena and arrived in July of 1904.  About two weeks later, Dr. S. Hall Young came to Fairbanks “and found a city mostly of log houses, with a few frame buildings and plenty of tents and some ten thousand people with another ten thousand working or prospecting on the creeks nearby.”[9]

 

About a week after he arrived, Judge Wickersham helped him and the Episcopal minister obtain the use of the courthouse for worship services, the two groups alternating between Sunday morning and Sunday evening.

 

Young began canvassing the town for money to erect a church and manse.  “Real estate was high and the price of lots in the heart of town was prohibitive.”[10]  He finally purchased a lot on the southeast corner of Seventh and Cushman and by November he had a new church and a small cabin constructed at a cost of $5500.  The church was used for worship immediately but the new congregation was not organized until the first Sunday of May in 1905, with 23 members.  Only eight of these were Presbyterians.  Of the remaining, six were Methodists, two were Baptists, four were Congregationalists, one was Lutheran, one was from Peniel Mission, and one joined by confession of faith.[11]

 

Young wrote in his autobiography,

 

            From the first I was greatly encouraged.  There were in proportion more

            women in Fairbanks that at either of the stampedes and many of these 

            women were Christian and used to church work.  My wife came from 

            Skagway and we lived in a little shack for two years.[12]

 

He liked the weather too.  He described it as “the most helpful I have ever experienced….It is a reliable climate; it is consistently cold in the winter and almost invariably warm in the summer.[13]

 

During his first two years at Fairbanks, his “salary” was subsidized by wedding fees.  “I was putting all the money I could get hold of into the church; prices were high and my salary small so the fees were very acceptable.”[14]  He noted that these fees were always generous.  For one wedding he received a gold nugget the size of his thumb and sold it for $96.

 

It appears that from the time the Presbyterian and Episcopal ministers conducted the first worship services in Fairbanks in a saloon, and later shared the courthouse for worship, the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians got on well together.  For years they held joint Thanksgiving services.  But from the outset, the Presbyterians and the Methodists didn’t get on too well.  When they came to town in 1905, Young told them,

 

You will, of course, do as you please; but my policy has always been 

to stay out of a declining camp when a pastor of another evangelical 

denomination was at work.  This town is going down and will continue 

to do so, like all placer camps, for years, and there is no room for 

effective work of the two denominations.  Instead of one strong, self-

supporting church, you will make two struggling weak ones.[15]

 

 

The Methodists did start a church, in spite of Young’s advice.  In 1918

 

            discussion arose over the strained relations between the local 

            Presbyterian Church and the Methodist Church owing to the

            fact that the pastor and his wife and members of St. James 

            Methodist Church have been proselytizing among the members

            and attendants of the Presbyterian Church.[16]

 

Dr. Young served the church until June 1, 1906.  Chena was beginning to diminish as a town, mostly because the seat of the area judicial district was moved from Eagle to Fairbanks, so the Rev. H. M. Frank of Chena was asked to serve in Fairbanks.  Frank left unexpectedly the following June and Dr. Young returned for a year until the Rev. James H. Condit arrived in July of 1908.

 

During his second stay Young “erected a commodious manse…to have it ready for the new pastor when he should arrive.  Although Fairbanks was declining in population, enough were there to keep me busy and afford a pleasurable winter of work.”[17]

 

By this time, Fairbanks had become more of a city.  Roads were constructed out to the creeks and little towns sprung up at Dome and Ester. The city was cosmopolitan with all nationalities represented, even one Japanese.  The Tanana Valley Railroad came up to Ester Junction in 1905, branched out to Fairbanks then over the ridges to Cleary and a telegraph line had been built to Valdez.[18]

 

In 1906, the town was described like this:

 

The streets of Fairbanks always present an interesting picture with their 

handsome store fronts, well dressed men, fashionable gowned women and 

happy children going to and from school and occasional groups of hardy 

miners and prospectors, horses and buggies, delivery wagons and freight 

teams.[19]

 

 

By 1907, the city government had cleaned up the town, closing the dance halls and gambling places.[20]  But, it apparently didn’t last because the Rev. James H. Condit wrote in his diary, “Conducted funeral service of…a prostitute who suicided by shooting herself on Easter Sunday morning….She was only 23 years old.  I took for a text, ‘Come unto me all that labor….’.”[21]

 

Condit, who succeeded Young, had been a pastor in Sioux City, Iowa before coming to Fairbanks.  Arriving in Fairbanks, he was shocked by the price of food.  The shock was cushioned by the abundance of game such as moose, rabbits, fish and grouse.[22]

 

He recorded his first impression of the church.

 

We found a neat frame structure heated by two huge wood burning 

stoves which monopolized much seating space, home made benches 

with straight up and down backs adapted to the stiffest kind of a straight-

backed Presbyterian worship service, but all in all, an attractive house 

of worship.[23]

 

One of his members, a Mrs. Milligan, chided him for his comments about the hard benches.  “If you had been here when we sat on planks resting on nail kegs,” she said, “you would have been glad to have any kind of a seat with a back on it.”[24]

 

With a small congregation, Dr. Condit was also assigned a ministry to the men who were mining on the creeks adjacent to Fairbanks.  He preached with some regularity at Ester, and described his reception as “always warm.”[25]

 

He was active in the various organizations in town.  He belonged to three fraternal organizations, the Odd Fellows, Eagles, and Pioneers.  When he left, the Pioneers voted to make him a life member.[26]

 

I have heard a number of times that Dr. Young came to Fairbanks and raised $5500 for the manse and church by going to the bars and asking for contributions.  The records do not bear that out.  The first manse was no more than a temporary shelter, it appears, and the second, more livable manse was not constructed until Young’s second stay in Fairbanks.  When Dr. Condit arrived, he was overwhelmed by the size of the church debt.  When he departed in 1913, “a debt of $5500 had been paid off and extensive repairs on the church building and manse had been made.  He organized the Young People’s Society, and the roll of the Sunday School increased from seven to one hundred.[27]

 

Dr. Condit left Fairbanks for Juneau where he became the General Missionary for Alaska.  In 1921 he resigned that post to become the president of Sheldon Jackson Institute.

 

The Rev. George Bruce succeeded Dr. Condit and is described as “being a very affable man.”[28]  He had served previously as the pastor of a church in East St. Louis, Ill., and at one time served as a missionary to China.  His salary was $720 a year.

 

Early in his ministry two of the church members were placed on the reserve roll.  One had gone over to the Christian Science cult and the other “had liberally displayed infidel views.”[29]

 

September 20, 1914, was a special day in the life of the church.

 

The Hon. James J. Crossley, United states District Attorney, Fourth Division, presented himself for church membership.  A very satisfactory and humble confession was made of his Lord and Master and his name enrolled among the communicants….His reception touched those present deeply.[30]

 

Upon the government’s decision to build a railroad into the interior to Fairbanks, the Ladies Aid planned a celebration for the whole community.  The called it “A Grand Railroad Celebration Social.”  The interior of the church was decorated to represent a depot with a lunch counter and all.  All kinds of delicacies were served including ice cream for the price of 25 cents.  In addition, there was a literary and musical program.[31]

 

Liquor was a continuing problem in the Territory.  In the church, “a committee on temperance was appointed to prepare for aggressive service in view of the special campaigning all over Alaska to prepare for voting on the question at the fall election.”[32]  The General Assembly’s report on temperance, which referred to Alaska, was read to the congregation at the annual meeting.

 

With the membership remaining about the same and the finances of the church diminishing, Bruce resigned his position on February 23, 1917, to accept a call to be the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Juneau.

 

The Rev. W.S. Marple became the pastor on April 11, 1917, at one of the more dismal times in the history of Fairbanks.  The population was declining.  The town of Chena, with a population of 400 in 1907, had only 50 people left by 1915.  At the end of the War, the commuter service to Chena stopped and the tracks were pulled out.  The minutes of Presbytery record that Marple served in Fairbanks “in spite of the depressing conditions of decline in population and prestige.”[33]

 

Everyone does not see the times the same, however.  Agnes Burr said in 1919, “The city today is far from having the appearance of a mining camp.”[34]  She described it as a busy, bustling town, with a prosperous business community. The Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines had been started.  A government experimental farm, in connection with the College, was testing vegetables, fruits, and grains which might be suitable for Alaskan agriculture.  The town had many churches, a public library, and a good school.  A game of baseball played at midnight on June 21st had just been initiated.  She concluded, “It can thus be seen that life at Fairbanks, though in touch with the frontier and the primeval, has all the comforts and pleasures that civilization has to offer.”[35]

 

At the church, the present wasn’t looking quite that bright.  Marple wrote in 1920 that there were less than half of the people residing in Fairbanks than when the church was started.  Prices had risen higher and money was more difficult to secure, so, it was harder for the 22 members who remained to support the church.  He commended them as “faithful, consistent, and willing to help.”[36]

 

There were other problems.  The Junior Christian Endeavor dropped due to the cold weather.  Elder Rosco Washborn left for the States and Elder Tonseth refused to serve, so there was no Session.[37]  As a consequence, Marple moved to greener pastures, Anchorage.  On leave in New York before resuming his new pastorate, Marple wrote the local congregation (probably seeing it as a solution to the deteriorating situation in the Church), “Union Churches should come before the whole mission council soon,” and he “hoped to hear that all Fairbanks had united in one church.”[38]

 

S. Hall Young had apparently been right in his assessment of the situation when the Methodists came to town.  In a community with a diminishing population, such as Fairbanks, two churches so similar could not remain strong.  The Methodists were having the same problem and they closed their doors.  Things started looking brighter for the Presbyterian Church.

 

The Rev. Fred Scherer arrived in the fall of 1920 with the bad times not yet over.  An influenza epidemic closed the Sunday School for some time during that winter and at the annual meeting, there was only $1.36 left in the treasury with some outstanding bills due.  When Marple left, there was no Session, so they tried to elect new elders, but the attempt failed, “no one appearing as qualified who would accept.”[39]

 

They went the entire year of 1922 without a Session.  However, when Scherer was outside as a delegate to General Assembly, S. Hall Young paid a visit to the church.  On May 21, 1922, he called a congregational meeting, and Edward A. Hering, Milton D. Snodgrass, and Einar Tonseth were elected as elders.  In addition, three new members joined the church.[40]  From that time on there seemed to be a gradual improvement in the life of the church although it wasn’t dramatic.

 

In 1923 the Session discussed “the state of religion in the congregation and a calling list was prepared.”  Improvements were made to the manse with a grant from the Board of Home Missions of $1000.[41]

 

In 1925, the Session recommended that each member take a more active interest in each of the services of the church, and called the attention of the congregation to the urgent need of teachers in the Sunday school.  A week later they discussed the matter of church attendance and decided that “each officer attend every service possible and urge attendance of others.[42]

 

In 1926 Scherer was appointed to do general missionary work in the Fairbanks area, establishing Sunday Schools, giving out literature and Bibles.  As a result of his work, residents of Fox and Gilmore asked that Sunday school facilities be extended to them. The Session took upon itself the responsibility of organizing a Sunday school at Fox and pledged that they would assist other localities where there were sufficient children.[43]

 

The church received the sad news on September 6, 1927, that S. Hall Young, the man who organized and nurtured the church for many years, had been fatally injured in Clarksburg, West Virginia.  He was struck by a car as he went to a reunion.  He was 80 at the time of his death.[44]

 

A 1924 speech, by Dr. Young in Juneau, is fitting as a summary of his long labor in Alaska.

 

I have many disappointments in my years here but in each case they have 

been for the best.  The first disappointment was when President 

McKinley promised me that I would be the governor of Alaska and great 

was my regret when that did not culminate.  But then came the great 

opportunity to be numbered among the thousands of men who witnessed 

and struggled over the Chilkoot and White Pass in an effort to get to the 

Klondike stampede.  This experience I would not have lost for all

the glory in the world.  Then upon my return to the United States, it was 

thought I would be the Moderator of the General Assembly, but was 

defeated by an elder who had the right to become moderator.  My 

disappointment changed to joy when came the opportunity to return to 

my beloved Alaska.  Then came the possibility that I might become the 

president of the first Alaskan College, but here too, I was disappointed. 

But instead came the larger Evangelism of Alaska of which I was 

appointed to care for.  So in each great disappointment, there was 

greater compensation for me.[45]

 

 

There is no doubt that Dr. Young was the second most important figure in Alaskan Presbyterian History, only Sheldon Jackson being more influential.

 

One of the strangest events in the life of the church occurred on Sunday evening, November 7, 1926.  Rev. Scherer had been opposing the candidacy of Thomas Marquim as a delegate to Congress, and after his opponent won, two masked men, robed in Ku Klux Klan regalia, appeared before the congregation after the closing hymn.  They passed an envelope to Rev. Scherer and asked him to read it to the congregation.  It expressed appreciation for his stand in the recent election.  The second envelope contained a cash contribution (of no small size, rumor had it).  The headline in the News Miner the following Tuesday read: ROBED KLANSMAN APPEARS BEFORE PULPIT SUNDAY.[46]

 

On May 1, 1928, the John E. Youel became the pastor of the church, moving to Fairbanks from Anchorage.  In July of 1929 the church minutes show this entry:

 

News of the death of Brother Thomas H. Tonseth brings great sadness to our church and congregation.  For many years he was a loyal member, regular attendant upon all of the services, always a staunch advocate and defender of the evangelical faith.  For his faithful service as a Trustee and Ruling Elder of this Church, we hereby record our grateful appreciation and lovingly commend the members of his family to the comforting care and grace of our heavenly Father.[47]

 

As early as 1918 the church had been concerned with the inadequacy of its building, but funding was a problem.  In 1925, after discussing the matter, recommendations were made to the Presbytery about a new building, with the provision that “funds could be secured from the Board.”[48]

 

But it did not happen as quickly as hoped.  In 1927 “the need of increased facilities such as Sunday school room and general church community building was stressed and it is urged that every effort be made to secure such a building.”[49]  Presbytery, meeting at Fairbanks that year, gave the church permission to build a “Sunday school and Parish House” for $7000.[50]  Again, nothing but more discussion.

 

In 1930 the Church asked the Board of Home Missions for $10,000 for a new church building.  This time it was granted and the congregation decided to canvass the church membership and the town for the remaining $5000 needed for construction.[51]

 

By the summer of 1931 the new church was built, but there wasn’t enough money to pay the contractor, Jack Baily and Co., the final $950 owed them.  $1000 was borrowed from a local bank and he was paid.[52]  The old church was converted into the Sunday school and Parish House and appropriately named Young Memorial Hall.

 

Beginning in the 1930’s, new prosperity began coming to Fairbanks with the invasion of the mammoth gold dredges.  When the first miners came to the area, they soon discovered much of the gold was buried under many feet of muck and gravel.  Gold had gone up to $10 an ounce and so the big mechanical monsters arrived, tearing up the terrain around the creeks and leaving unsightly piles of “tailings” in their wake.  Alaska’s first pipeline was built to transport water from the north to Fairbanks to the dredges so they could float while chewing up the earth.  The Davidson Ditch, as it was called, operated until the disastrous flood of 1967.

 

Fairbanks was described in the 1930’s as a “white man’s town….Most people here had never seen an Eskimo…except on the silver screen.”  Mary Lee Davis refuted the claim that it was a mining town, explaining it was only a feeder for a scored of mining settlements nearabouts.  She suggested it looked more like a Western cattle town.[53]

 

The Rev. John Youel served the church during the decade of the 30’s.  In the summer, many of his congregation migrated to the mines.  “Seldom do I preach to the same group two Sundays in succession….But those who have gone away are replaced by visitors and tourists.  Nearly every week I face a congregation of strangers.”[54]

 

Apparently Youel made one trip each year to Cape Prince of Wales to assist a missionary nurse stationed there.  It was the only time each year that the Eskimos would hear sermons from an ordained pastor and he would hold communion, baptize, perform weddings, meet with the church officers and teach.[55]

 

During Youel’s long tenure in Fairbanks, a Men’s Club was begun, a Daily Vacation Bible School was started, a Saturday Night Club was initiated for the faculty and men students at the college, and the church prayer meeting is listed as being “an important phase of the work.”[56]

 

The Session continued to be concerned about the liquor problem in the city and Alaska.  No only did they discuss it, but in 1940 they allowed the WCTU to use the church for lectures prior to a Territorial Referendum.[57]

 

There was also a concern about the growth of the church. In 1933 the church placed the times of their services in local hotels, set letters of invitation to various people to attend, and the pastor and the officers began making personal visitations.[58]  Perhaps as a result, by 1936 the Sunday school had the largest enrollment ever.

 

In 1937 the Board of National Missions urged the church to work for an increased gathering of members.  No doubt the Board was pushing the church to become self-supporting.  One of the perpetual problems mentioned during these years is the church debt and ways it might be eliminated, and apparently because of the continual concern, it was slowly reduced.

 

Youel resigned April 1, 1940, to take the position of General Missionary for Alaska.  He was replaced by the Rev. Rolland Armstrong who stayed until June 30, 1942 when he resigned to take the pastorate of First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage.  His pastorate brought to a close the first period of the church’s history when the decision was made to become self-supporting on Jan. 1, 1942.[59]  Although the church did need help in the future, the determination seemed to mark a step towards a stronger, more mature congregation, ready to assume new ministries which the war was about to lay at her doorstep.

 

This new period of First Presbyterian Church’s life was to begin another influx of people.  This time thousands of military personnel from the Lower 48 and a handful of Eskimos from the Northern Alaska were to invade the city.  The soldiers would have a passing impact.  The Eskimos were to have a permanent one.

 

From World War II to the Discovery of Oil, 1942-1969

 

Fairbanksans were tense when they learned of the invasion of Pearl Harbor, fully expecting Alaska to be attacked.  There was uneasiness as the town was blacked out at night and rumors of the invasion of Alaska came through radio Tokyo via Canada.

 

The U.S. Government realized its vulnerability.  Fairbanks was the same distance from New York as it was from Tokyo, and there was nothing to stop the Japanese from occupying the Territory.  Airfields were quickly built with the major bases being at Anchorage and Fairbanks.  Within a short time, thousands of men were deployed to Canada and Alaska to build the Alaska Highway, from Dawson Creek in British Columbia, to Fairbanks and Anchorage.  The quiet little town in the interior suddenly came alive with hoards of construction workers and soldiers.

 

The Rev. Harry Champlin became the pastor in the fall of 1942.  When he submitted his moving bill from Wrangell to the Session for $451.99, the church decided to pay $101.99 and left the rest to the Board because of the “loss of revenue due to the departure of some of our major contributors.”[60]

 

As the war progressed, Champlain decided to become a military chaplain, but the Board of National Missions denied his request “on the grounds that he was performing necessary work directly connected with the war effort.”[61]

 

The church was described at this time as “the largest church in the city.  It was considered the community church, serving not only its membership but also many other denominations not yet established in Fairbanks.”[62]

 

To help the church minister to the service men and war workers, the Board of National Missions was allocating $50 a month to the local church.  It appears the money was used mostly to supply food and provide expenses for a time of fellowship after the Sunday evening service.  About 40-50 were present and “the activity…added much to the friendly attitude of the church.”[63]

 

There is little to indicate, in the church minutes, that much of a program for the soldiers was carried out until the first Parish Worker, Miss Gertrude Bechtel, arrived in September of 1944.  Three quarters of her $2000 salary was provided by the Mission Board and the church provided the rest.  After her arrival, she opened a canteen in the church where different forms of entertainment were provided such as games, skating, and movies.

 

Miss Bechtel left after about a year of service, possibly because of a salary dispute.  She came with the belief the church would provide her free housing, but instead she was charged $34 a month for rent and fuel.  The Session explained “that the church did not own the Junes property, that several individual Session members did, and the church would not receive title to the property until the loan was paid off.”  Therefore, “they could not give her rent free accommodations.”[64]  No parish worker was hired again until Miss Dorothy Nichols came on July 7, 1946.  The war had come to a close but the church continued a ministry to the soldiers who remained.

 

The Eskimos began coming to Fairbanks in 1943.  Bernice Morgan, the wife of the Nazarene minister, reports that when she and her husband came to town during the winter in 1940, there was only one Eskimo man and no Eskimo women.

 

Harding Katairoak came to Fairbanks on June 12, 1943.  He had been born in Barrow, the son of a trapping and hunting family.  When still a boy, he moved to Wiseman where he first went to school and learned to speak English.  He went back to Barrow to marry his wife Daisy, but they returned to Wiseman to live.

 

While at Wiseman in 1943, Harding tells how a “man from the army” came to the village and told him he had a choice – to work on the Alaska Railroad or to be drafted into the army.  For Harding, it was an easy choice and the next day he was on his way to Fairbanks, which was to become his permanent home.  As soon as there was money and housing, Harding brought his family to live with him.

 

At first Harding lived in a little house on the south side of the Chena River, but that made it too hard to get to work so the railroad allowed the Eskimo workers to erect tents on the railroad property.  This was the beginning of “Eskimo Village.”

 

Housing in the crowded city was difficult to find and this caused particular problems for the Eskimos who were not employed by the railroad.  In the summer, they had no problem living in tents, but when the winter came they needed to get indoors.  They “began living in the most broken down and abandoned cabins scattered all over Fairbanks.”[65]

 

During the fall of 1943, the railroad supplied little wooden houses for their Eskimo workers.  They were placed on skids and as the railroad expanded, there were pulled around from place to place.  At first they were located near the roundhouse where they were close to water.  Harding says the location of the village was ideal.  He could walk a few steps out of his house and catch grayling in the Chena River, rabbits were plentiful, and they even saw moose nearby.  This all helped with their food supply.

 

Although Harding says the house in Eskimo Village “were pretty good,”[66] the Rev. Harry Champlain describes them as being made out “of scraps of lumber, tin, and cardboard – really a sad sight.”[67]

 

Harding’s sister-in-law, Mary Ahgook Darling, came to Fairbanks for the first time as a teenager to visit.  She had to go back that fall to go to school in Wiseman, but she financed another trip by cleaning the Wiseman school for $15 a month.  Her second trip was to stay permanently, and her parents soon followed.

 

She describes herself as “too bashful to talk” when she first arrived.[68]  The weather was too hot and she got headaches because of it.  But she fell in love with a young soldier, Howard Darling, and they were married on June 1, 1945.

 

Harding wasn’t in town long before Bert Bingle, a Presbyterian Sunday School missionary, visited him and told him about the Presbyterian Church.  Harding said Eskimos from Noatak and Kotzebue were going to the Nazarene Church but the Barrow-born Eskimos never went anywhere other than the Presbyterian Church.

 

Before his family arrived, Harding often accompanied Rev. Bingle on trips down the highway on the weekends.  They would stop at isolated houses and have Scripture and prayer with the people.  He remembers visiting some of the Negro camps along the highway too.  They had been sent north to help build the Alaska Highway.

 

Champlin describes the coming of the Eskimos at the church.

 

We had church services both morning and evening on Sundays.  The 

Eskimos began attending both of these services.  They would sit in the 

back pews, talk to no one, or no one would talk to them.  The service 

over, they would wait until all the other members of the congregation 

left and they would all get up and scramble out like a bunch of sheep.  

This went on for two or three months.  One day I visited their little 

community and asked who their leader was.  They told me Wilbur 

Itchoak.  I sought him out and asked him how he would like the idea 

of a service of their own – perhaps on Sunday afternoon.  He said he 

would think it over and talk to the rest of his people.  A week later he 

came to see me and said they had decided they would like to have their 

own service.  I said, “When would you like to start?”  He said, “Whenever 

you say.”  I suggested the next Sunday and asked him what would be a 

good time.  He said that whatever I set.  So, I suggested Sunday at 3 p.m.

About six Eskimos came to the first service but by the third Sunday there 

were about fifteen.  Attendance continued to grow until at times there 

were fifty Eskimos present.  I used Wilbur as an interpreter.  He would 

stand beside me at the lectern, so he could read the Bible with me and 

interpret it, and what I had to say, which was always an exposition of the Scriptures.  Wilbur had a tough time with some words.  For example, the Christmas story and the word camel was too much for him.  I finally 

arranged to get a picture of the three wise men on their camels to show the 

people.  Roy Ahmaogak finally translated the camel as a “horse-with-a-hump 

on his back.”  Wilbur and his wife, Cora, had ten children all of whom, boys 

and girls, had the name “Wilbur” as their middle name.  Guess he wanted to 

be sure they didn’t forget who their father was.

The singing, prayer, and the whole service was in Eskimo except what I had 

to say – Wilbur interpreted.  I always figured he had a pretty hard time 

getting across to his people what I was trying to say, so at the close of my sermonette I would say, “Wilbur, you sum up in your own words what we 

have been talking about.”  And forthwith, Wilbur would preach a good sermon with gestures and voice modulations and enthusiasm which, I am sure, was

much better than the way I had put it.  Of course I don’t really know if he 

was saying the same things or was on the same subject, but the people were attentive and seemed to be satisfied.

 

After the service was over, I would walk to the door to greet them as they 

left.  But they didn’t leave.  They just sat there.  I became a little worried 

and asked Wilbur if I had left something important out or was there 

something else we  should do.  He just shrugged and pretty soon they all 

got up and left.  It wasn’t long before, when the “Amen” was pronounced 

at the close, they would all rise up and angle out.  It must have been a year 

later when I had a chance to talk to Fred Klerekoper, our missionary in 

Barrow, about the services and asked him why the people just sat there at 

the close of the service.  “Why, Harry,” he said with a grin, “they sit down 

after the service and meditate on what you have told them.  The longer they

sit there, the more impressed they are with what you said.”  Well, I 

inadvertently broke up a beautiful form of worship for those Eskimos.

 

In the beginning, some of the women wrote out different Eskimo songs 

and four or five would stand up and lead the singing.  Eventually the 

songs were printed.  They taught me to sing “Into My Heart” in Eskimo 

and whenever we had visitors come to the service, they always wanted 

me to stand with them and sing the chorus of “Into My Heart.” [69]

 

How were the Eskimos accepted in Fairbanks?  Bernice Morgan, the Nazarene minister’s wife, probably held the prevalent view of the day when she said, “There is no race prejudice, at least none observable.”[70]  She must have been unaware that Eskimo women were not allowed in the USO, that Eskimos were required to sit on one side of the theater in Nome, away from the whites, that many cafes refused to serve Natives.  The Territorial Legislature passed a bill ending such discrimination in 1945.

 

How were the Eskimos accepted at First Presbyterian Church?  Probably most who attended church at that time would agree with the Rev. Fred Koschmjan who said, “I never did see any resentment to their attendance.  In fact, I think everyone tried to make them feel at home.”[71]  Harding Katairoak never felt any prejudice and neither did Mary Darling.  Mary accepted the people at the church right away.  She “figured they were nice people as long as they were church people.”[72]

 

However, there are indications they were not accepted by some, and that there was genuine confusion about what to do with the Eskimo people.

 

Harry Champlin notes that when they first came they would sit in the back pews and “no one would talk to them.”  He also commented that “on occasion one of our stuffy white members would come into the sanctuary an hour or so after the Eskimo service and complain about the smell.  He couldn’t stand it and went around opening doors and ventilators.”[73]  Mable Rasmussen counters, “Some of their parkas were home tanned, and there is a different odor to them than the furs found in stores.  This made people suspicious about their cleanliness, but they were the cleanest people in the world.  I can eat off their table.”  She added, “The attitude of the Eskimo people was just beautiful, but the attitude of our church people was not.”[74]

 

Other dividing differences were language and food.  Mary Darling tells how difficult it was to adjust to Fairbanks food.  “No caribou, ptarmigan, no fish meat, and hamburgers just didn’t go.”[75]  Harry Champlin writes, “The first time I saw Silas Negovana try a spoonful of spinach, I thought he would choke to death.  He spit it out right now.”  And Champlin relates his first encounter with muktuk, “I chewed and chewed and didn’t get anywhere, but they were watching me very closely so I finally had to choke it down.”[76]

 

There was confusion at potlucks.  The Eskimos didn’t bring any food and several of the whites complained, “They come to eat, but they never contribute.”

 

Mable Rasmussen got the women together and said, “Why don’t you bring your own food?”

 

They said, “We can’t bring our stuff.  Everybody would laugh at us.”

 

Mable responded, “Who cares?  You bring your muktuk, you bring your food that you eat at home.  We’ll eat it.”[77]

 

Everything must be put within the context of the times in which they are lived.  The Rev. Neil Monroe, who served as interim pastor between Vic Alfson and Fred Koschman, says that the white attitude toward the Eskimos was typical of the times.  “Segregation is a very subtle thing that none of us really understood or realized at the time.  I know that I was certainly naïve at that point in time.[78]

 

Although he points out that his impressions of this time are “highly subjective” and will not be “popular,” he believes that the congregation and Session 

 

were not very happy that they were present (but) they had a sense of 

concern that something be done….And at least they knew that the English services were not getting through and they themselves did not want to go 

for a more simplistic form of service with which they characterized the 

Eskimo worshippers.  So they were glad to have them sort of out of their 

hair by worshiping at another time.[79]

 

He adds, “Obviously, you don’t put this sort of appraisal in the Session records.”[80]

 

Recently, at a funeral, I ran across Mrs. Steve Hobson from Nuiqsut and she commented how differently she now felt about First Presbyterian Church.  She felt welcome and wanted.  She first went to First Presbyterian Church in the 1940’s, but she did not feel at home or welcome then.  She said the ladies all dressed so formally with everyone having hats on their heads and no white person would talk to her.  So after a few episodes like that, she went to the Assembly of God Church where she felt more accepted.

 

The reason why First Presbyterian Church still has Eskimos in its membership today is probably due both their naiveté and to the strong ties of the Eskimos to the Presbyterian Church.  Elizabeth Frantz, an elder at the present time, often relates that she is a Presbyterian because her father always told her to be Presbyterian.  The first Eskimos who came to First Presbyterian Church felt the same way and there was nothing that would send them off to another church.  Their naiveté was due to the fact that they were infants in their encounter with the white culture.  Even if a person showed feelings of disapproval towards them, they probably never felt it.  Thus, whether they were wanted or not, they were in First Presbyterian Church to stay, and therefore the ministry to them continued.

 

Speaking of whites who did not accept or could not understand Eskimo ways, Mable Rasmussen tells how she would “try to get them to understand.”  She concludes that understanding just doesn’t happen that quickly for most people.  “They just have to come to it gradually and some people just can’t understand.”[81]

 

But as the years passed, and more encounters between the two groups took place, so did more understanding.  In cross-cultural relationships, experience is valuable.  Everything did not run smoothly, but friendships and acquaintances were developed, ties were formed, and conversations were started.  Because the Eskimo people did not leave, the experience of cross-cultural relationships became the legacy of those who attended the church.

 

On May 25, 1945, the Session minutes read:

 

The following Eskimos, who have been faithful in attending the special 

Eskimo and other services of the Church during the past year or more, 

presented themselves before the Session and asked to be accepted as 

members as follows:  Wilbur and Cora Itchoak and Mrs. Annie Kayak 

Miller on reaffirmation of faith and Louise Tolak Riley, Mary Avikana 

Ahgook, Daisy Elenki Katairok and Harding Katairoak on confession 

of faith.[82]

 

 

Life in Fairbanks brought new problems to the Eskimo people.  Earning money was not a problem when they first arrived because of the need for any person who wanted to work.  The first Eskimos worked on the railroad while the women washed dishes in cafes.  As the job market declined in later years, their lack of education and training made employment difficult to find.  Spending money they earned was another problem.  Coming from a subsistence culture to a cash economy was quite a change and they often did not spend their money wisely.

 

A second problem was food.  The church realized this problem quickly, so by 1945 Harry Champlin had a church dinner for them once a month.  Lydia Fohn-Hansen, of the Extension Department of the University, came to church and the Eskimo women helped her prepare the meal.  That way, the women learned how to prepare some of the “white man’s food.”[83]

 

The third problem was the loss of social support and this had many ramifications.  Mary Darling tells how difficult it was after the war, when jobs were scarce.  They had no money and there ‘was no one to turn to.”  Now the church helps, but it didn’t then.”[84]  In the village, they had to deal with friends and relatives.  In Fairbanks, they had to deal with strangers.

 

They were greatly concerned about their children who were unaccustomed to the freedom of the city.  In the small village, they were always under the watchful eye of family and friends.  But not in Fairbanks!  Fred Koschman writes, “We should have done more for the young people.”[85]

 

Mable Rasmussen became aware of the problem of young Eskimo girls.  She said to Pastor Vic Alfsen, “These young girls need help.  They are down on the streets and fellows are just picking them up.  They don’t realize that those fellows are not honest and looking out just for themselves.  The GI’s may be lonesome too, but these girls need protection.”[86]  One Sunday afternoon when Harry and Mable were taking some Eskimo women home, they were asked by their passengers, “Why don’t you do something about our girls?”[87].  That question was the conception of Hospitality House, a home away from home for young Eskimo girls.

 

The 1940’s caused the church to grow and the ministry was greatly expanded.  A radio program was started called, “News in the Eyes of the Church.”  The pastor also took part in a ten minute program at 7:45 a.m. each morning, with the town ministers taking turns.  In 1947, the church began broadcasting the second half of each Sunday morning worship service.

 

On Easter Sunday, 1944, the attendance at all services was 900 people.  In 1947, the church was “ministering to 300 soldiers a week,”[88] and there were 191 members on the church roll.

 

A succession of lay assistants helped Mr. Champlain with his busy schedule.  After Miss Dorothy Nichols resigned April 1, 1948, Shirley Tonseth, a member of the congregation, served  during the summer months, followed by John Bridges who served until July of 1949.  C.A. Wood began his service to the church in September, 1949.

 

Improvements to the building and the property took place.  The Junes property to the east of the church was purchased in 1943.  In 1946, the church and manse were hooked up to the city steam lines.  In 1947, a new Hammond organ was purchased for $2553 with a $1000 down payment being loaned from a local bank.  Improvements were also made to Young Memorial Hall that year.  In 1948, after some discussion, it was moved: “A request in the name of the church is to be made for a plot of ground consisting of approximately 40 acres for use as a church recreational ground at Harding Lake.”[89]

 

On the death of Wilbur Itchoak, this notation was made in the Session minutes:

 

Wilbur Itchoak was born in Barrow, Alaska, June 22, 1986.  As a young 

man, he made his way along the coast to the eastward and in the course 

of the years worked his way up the Colville River where he lived with 

his family until he came to Fairbanks in 1943.  He was a leader among

the Eskimos in the Eskimo Village and among the Eskimos in the Alaska 

Railroad freight house where most of them worked.

 

When the first Eskimo Church service was held in the Presbyterian Church 

here, in February, 1944, Wilbur acted as an interpreter for Rev. Champlain 

and continued to do so each Sunday until he was taken ill in the summer of 

1947.  Because of his leadership and faithfulness, Wilbur was elected and ordained as a Ruling Elder of the Church on April 10, 1946, to represent 

the Eskimo congregation on the Session.

 

In August, 1947, Wilbur left for the Alaska Native Service Hospital at 

Tanana, where he passed away October 6, a victim of tuberculosis.[90]

 

In 1947, E.A. Tonseth was honored upon his resignation as church treasurer.  He had first been elected in 1909 and served 28 years.[91]

 

In 1941, Bert Bingle had been appointed as a Sunday School Missionary in the Interior of Alaska and in 1949, a new church, the University Community Presbyterian Church, was established near the University of Alaska in College.  Bingle constructed the log church which still stands there.

 

First Presbyterian had kept the bell which was on the original structure and had voted in 1941 to send it to the church in Cape Prince of Wales, but for some reason it never got there.  In 1949, the bell was given to the new College Church.

 

The Rev. Harry Champlin resigned as pastor of the church on July 1, 1949, and his successor was a former member of First Presbyterian Church, Fred Koschman.  Fred had been the school superintendent in Fairbanks before he went to Seminary.  He had served for several years in new church development in Anchorage before becoming the pastor here on December 1, 1949.

 

He had only been here a short time when he wrote for the 1949 Annual Report.  “Certainly there is a challenge here for one’s best and hardest efforts.  Besides the regular congregation, there is the service men’s group, and the Eskimos, each with special problems, and each with a unique opportunity.  Here are, really three congregations in 

one.[92]

 

Koshman describes what an evening service was like during his pastorate.  It was attended by a large number of Eskimos and service men, and the regular members of the church.

 

We often had a number of instruments accompanying the singing.  At

the minimum we had piano and organ and one of the Eskimos, Silas 

Negovanna, on the saw.  The music in these services was certainly the

high point.  After the service, there was a coffee hour.[93]

 

 

The church had been involved in a radio ministry for some time, and when Harry Champlin left, the Session decided to drop the broadcast of the Sunday morning worship service until a new minister arrived.  Fred Koschman recommended that the broadcast of the Sunday worship service be discontinued and a five minute Monday-Saturday program be aired instead.  On Feb. 1, 1950, the Family Altar was carried for the first time on KFAR at 8-8:05 a.m.

 

Two pastors and one layman of First Presbyterian have been presidents of Sheldon Jackson.  Dr. James Condit, the second pastor, became president of the Institute; in 1950, Harry Brandt resigned his responsibilities in the church to become president of Sheldon Jackson School; and Dr. Roland Armstrong, who served as the pastor of the church in the early 1940’s, also served as president when it was just beginning its college program.

 

As the city was continuing to expand, the congregation found itself no longer in the residential section of town.  They discussed whether or not to oppose the building of a service station across the street from the church, but decided against it.  1951 was the beginning of a series of debates on whether or not the church should abandon its downtown location and build a new church in the suburbs.  In 1951 they decided to stay at Seventh and Cushman, and the same decision has been made each time the question has arisen since then.

 

In the early 1950’s the nation was at war again, this time in Korea, and so a new military buildup descended on Fairbanks.  This time the Board of National Missions sent the Rev. Neil Monro to have a ministry with the servicemen, with the church as his headquarters.  But just as he arrived in 1952, Fred Koschman resigned and Monro became the interim pastor of First Presbyterian Church, giving half-time to the church and half-time to the ministry with the servicemen.  By 1953 the war was over and military personnel began moving out, so a Sunday school started by Monro was abandoned.  A servicemen’s center also had been opened, and after he left, it ceased to exist.

 

Victor I. Alfsen became the new pastor on May 6, 1953.  He was a graduate of Park College, and Dallas Theological Seminary.  After serving in Palmer, Alaska, for eight years, he returned to Princeton Theological Seminary for two years.  Mrs. Alfsen was described as “A charming, shy, quiet woman with a beautiful alto voice and an accomplished player on a Hammond organ.”[94]  Concerning the family, “They have three children, good philosophy, are sincere Christians, and want to return to the Territory.  He is also interested in radio, is an aviator, and an excellent Scout Master.”[95]

 

The call to Rev. Alfsen is interesting and was not accepted by Presbytery until the part about his wife’s employment was removed.  It read:

 

In order that you may be free to devote the required time and thought to your duties as pastor and that your family may ban example to our Church and to the Community, this congregation feels that Mrs. Alfsen’s place is to be a wife, mother, and homemaker and that she should not seek outside employment.  If at any time you should face a personal financial crisis, this matter should be brought to the attention of the trustees.[96]

 

With the growth of the church during the 40’s and early 50’s, the congregation was beginning to run out of space again.  In 1954, the congregation voted to build a new church, and by 1955, the work was underway.  The church built in 1931 was torn down and a new brick structure rose in its place.  The congregation worshiped in the Main School auditorium during the period they were without a sanctuary.  The new church was formally dedicated on January 22, 1956.

 

Harry and Mable Rasmussen came to Fairbanks in 1951.  They walked into the church the first Sunday they were in town and immediately felt at home.  “The people were very friendly to us.”[97]  When the service was over, she noticed the Eskimo people.  “All of a sudden Edith Tegosiak walked back and she put out both her hands to me and said, ‘Come meet my people’.”[98]

 

They were invited to attend the afternoon worship service and they went.  “If anything influenced us to go to First Presbyterian Church, it was the welcome we got from the Eskimo people.”[99]

 

It wasn’t long before Mable was in to ask Rev. Alfsen what she could do to help with the Eskimo people.  He responded in a way typical of pastors:  “You can start a Sunday School class.”

 

She said, “I don’t want to teach Sunday School.  I’ve taught Sunday School all my life.”[100]

 

By 1955, Mable was stressing the need for some place in Fairbanks where Eskimos passing through might stay and on March 7, 1956, the Session officially became interested in such a project.  By November 9^th of that year, a down payment of $1000 had been made on the Legion Hall.  It was rented at first, with the option that the first year’s rent could apply to the purchase price.  Mable agreed to run Hospitality House for a year.  She eventually ended up staying 17 years and became mother to hundreds of young girls throughout Alaska.

 

Throughout the years, the ministry of Hospitality House has changed with the times.  At first it had a ministry with young Native women, but as high schools came to the bush, Hospitality House began taking girls of every race who were having problems living at home.  It cut its administrative ties with the church eventually, and now has an elected board of directors from the community.  It operates almost totally from funds provided by the State through the placement of young girls and through the community’s United Fund.

 

During Victor Alfsen’s ministry, Elder Bill Siemans was commissioned by Yukon Presbytery as a lay preacher and took charge of the Eskimo service.  When he left Fairbanks to attend Wheaton College, the church employed the Rev. Elmer Parker, a retired minister, half-time.  Coming to the church in late 1955, he had experience working with the Native people in Southeastern and Western Alaska.  He left on June 1, 1957.

 

Marion Horton, an elder of the church, had begun working with the Eskimo people prior to Rev. Parker’s coming and when Parker left, he assumed the responsibilities.  He also began a ministry to the people in the “Six Mile” area, now located at the intersection of Badger Road and the Richardson Highway.  On October 22, 1957, Marion Horton was commissioned as a lay preacher by Yukon Presbytery.  He later felt the call to the ministry and graduated from Dubuque Theological Seminary in the 1960’s

 

The Rev. Victor Alfsen resigned as pastor of the church on October 29, 1958, to become pastor of the Union Church in Seoul, South Korea  After the short interim stay of Rev. Wilbur Dierking, the Rev. Brian Cleworth became the new pastor.  He moved from Palmer on July 5, 1959, the year Alaska was admitted into the Union as the 49^th State.

 

Shortly thereafter, the Session requested the Board of National Missions “to supply an ordained person to divide his time between work with the Eskimos and calling on service personnel in the community.”[101]  The Rev. William Zeiger arrived in Fairbanks on July 1, 1960, to assume that responsibility, but was forced to leave on May 31, 1962, when the Department of Chaplains and the Board of National Missions no longer had money available for his salary.

 

Elder Choat and Brian Cleworth took over the Eskimo service for a while but by 1963, Edith Tegoseak, Otis Ahkivgak, and Roland Lord were preaching sermons in the Eskimo language.

 

The 1960 annual report says,

 

The Eskimo people have great problems in keeping their families together while going through a tremendous cultural change in a few generations.  There are pressures and influences in our city life which engulf them and they appeal to the rest of the congregation to help understand and to help them make the change by prayer and other practical means.  It doesn’t mean handouts but Christians working side by side to solve common problems.[102]

 

In 1961, the Alaska Railroad moved the small Eskimo houses which had been in the general railroad area for 18 years, to 26^th and Lathrop.  Although the location of the houses changed, the new settlement retained the name of “Eskimo Village.”  Brian Cleworth tried to get the village water and other improvements with the help of the Bureau of Indian Affairs but was unsuccessful.  It took 13 years to get sewer and water.  The people had to carry their water from service stations around town, and in the winter, some of the older residents, who were without transportation, melted snow. 

 

During Brian Cleworth’s vacation in 1965, the church met the Rev. Charles E. Sydnor for the first time.  The Rev. Sydnor was to return to the church later as an interim pastor.  He

 

had taught at Kake, Alaska, from 1917-1920 and served as a Navy Chaplain in the Aleutians during the war.  He was an inspiration to those who became acquainted with him.  Chaplain Sydnor served without pay and even returned money paid by the church for his apartment as a gift to the Building Fund.  Chaplain Sydnor left in September to serve as Chaplain and Associate Professor of Religion at Jamestown College in Jamestown, North Dakota.[103]

 

In the early 60’s, the church again was in need of space.  The old church built by Dr. Young was being used for Sunday School and was not sufficient for the congregation.  In 1965, the decision was made to build a “Community Building,” and by 1966, C. & R. Builders of Anchorage was constructing the $163,000 unit.  The original church, Young Memorial Hall, was given to “Alaska 67,” the group putting together a recreational facility called Alaskaland for the centennial celebration of Alaska’s purchase from Russia.  The church remains in Alaskaland today, as a vivid reminder of this community’s Christian heritage.

 

First Presbyterian Church has, I believe, faced two very serious moments of crisis in its history.  The first has already been described, happening after World War I when population moved quickly out of the Territory.  Church membership dropped, there was a serious shortage of money in the treasury, no one would serve on the Session, and the pastor was extremely discouraged.

 

The second major crisis began to develop shortly after bids had been let to construct the new addition to the church in 1966.  The pastor, Brian Cleworth, submitted his resignation, effective June 30, 1966.  The congregation t first refused to accept it but finally conceded when he put forward his second resignation effecting September 15, 1966.  Cleworth remained in Fairbanks, going into the accounting business with an elder of the church, Howard Kuhns.

 

Into a major building program, the congregation was left without a pastor.  Work began immediately to secure a new leader.  One month after Brian Cleworth’s resignation, the Rev. Dean Hickox candidated and on Thanksgiving Day, 1966, he and his family moved into the new manse.

 

The afternoon service was already suffering from neglect at this time and by November of 1966, only about 10 Eskimos were attending the service.  They were using tapes sent from Barrow for the sermons and Dr. Roy Ahmoagak was asked to come to assist.  He did, but not on any permanent or regular basis.

 

The new building was named “The Presbyterian Community Center” at its dedication, December 18, 1966.  But in August, the following year, the most severe flood ever to hit Fairbanks brought water to the top of the pews in the sanctuary and filled the basement areas with mud and silt.  One hundred ten thousand dollars damage was done to the church and $2,000 to the manse.

 

Tuesday evening work parties were organized on a weekly basis to help clean up the church and Presbyterians from Barrow and Anchorage came to assist.  Even though financial help poured in from “sister churches all across the U.S., as well as the disaster fund of the General Assembly,”[104] there was a severe financial crunch being felt in the church treasury.  It was requested that a moratorium be granted on payment of indebtedness on the manse, sanctuary, and community building.  At the end of 1967, as the budget was being prepared for the new year, it was estimated that $43,000 was needed, but only $24,000 had been pledged.  The budget was accepted even though the Session did not think they could meet it.  At an earlier Session meeting, it had been suggested that the church sell the manse to see them through the crisis, but this idea was rejected.

 

Signs of disunity began appearing.  Brian Cleworth, the former pastor, discussed disunity at a specially called congregational meeting.  In June, 1968, the chairman of Presbytery’s Ministerial Relations Committee met with the Session and asked the church to try to work out the problems with the pastor.  In 1954, the church had a membership of 343; in 1969, it had dropped to 216, many of whom had to be dropped at one time because the roll had not been kept up to date and was allowed to accumulate with persons who were no longer active.

 

Meanwhile the Eskimo congregation was continuing to suffer.  One of the complaints against Hickox was “in relationship to the Eskimo program.”[105]  In late 1967, the Eskimo service was abandoned “due to the lack of manpower.”[106]  But the Eskimo service would not die and before long it was continuing with the help of Don Webster, the Wycliff Translator who had helped Roy Ahmoagak translate the Bible into Iñupiaq, and Enoch Sherman, a layman from the Eskimo Friend’s Church.

 

Under Pressure, the Rev. Dean Hickox submitted his resignation on November 30, 1969.  It must honestly be said that he came at one of the most critical times in the life of the congregation.  He saw them through the completion of the building and the disastrous flood.  Once the church building was useable again, he directed the church toward a community ministry.  Before he left, the Senior Citizens of Fairbanks were using the church kitchen and fellowship hall to get their program organized, and the Alaska Homemakers ran their program from an office in the church.

 

The trials of the previous years caused the church to take time to reflect on its future as it sought a new minister.  One thing became clear as the Session and Pastor Seeking Committee began searching for the kind of leadership needed to move into the future.  Someone was wanted who would work with the Eskimo people.  They were vague about what needed to be done, but some new directions were desired.

 

A second factor the Pastor Seeking Committee was pondering was the discovery of oil on the North Slope.  Although viewed by the committee as a positive event, leadership was needed to carry the church through another invasion of people into the community.

 

Since 1963, oil companies had been working near the Arctic Ocean 150 miles east of Barrow.  By the end of 1967, they had spent $125 million and had nothing to show for their efforts.  British Petroleum decided to pull out, while Atlantic Richfield decided to punch one more hole into the depths of the tundra.  They called the well Prudhoe Bay State No. 1.  On February 18, 1968, they struck oil and on June 25^th, they announced that Prudhoe Bay State No. 1 had produced 40 million cubic feet of gas a day and crude oil up to 2,400 barrels a day.  “There were wild stories in Fairbanks of an ARCO plane that had returned from Prudhoe Bay covered with oil after being caught in the spray of a gusher.”[107] It was gold fever all over again, but this time it was “black gold.”  “What caught the imagination of the world was the speculation that the entire North Slope might contain up to one hundred billion barrels of oil.”[108]

 

From the Discovery of Oil to the Completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline

 

I have no idea why the Pastor Seeking Committee asked me to candidate at First Presbyterian Church.[109]  In a time when the development craze had hit Alaska because of the oil, I sent them a taped sermon dealing with ecology.  They were pleased with its style, but not its content.

 

There were 50 applicants for the position, one of them being the Rev. John Chambers, who had served with the Eskimo people in Barrow during the 1950’s.  Several of the committee members were skeptical about my ability to make the switch from the Iowa farmlands to an urban church.  It seems to be one of those situations Christians face so often.  God has reasons and guides us when we ask for his help, even though our own reason might point us in a different direction.

 

I do know why I came, however.  I had spent my whole life in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa.  My early education had been in various small towns in Southeastern South Dakota and after my graduation from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, I headed for Dubuque, Iowa, to go to seminary.  My first church was in Minnesota, just 60 miles from where I had been born, and the second was in the heart of Iowa, with the same kind of German people with whom I had grown up.  I needed a change.

 

Events at the time were also shaping my life.  Although in the early 1960’s I was a theological conservative, I had always had a deep feeling and compassion for people.  I had worked construction during summer months while I was in college, and I had come to know some of the problems and needs of the Sioux Indians in my home state.  One of my best friends in college had been a black who could not get his hair cut downtown.  When the civil rights movement started, my heart told me to get involved and I did with hesitancy and fear.  My first journey south was to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where I participated in a voter registration drive.  A few years later, I helped initiate a “Cousin County” program between Grundy County, Iowa, and Carroll County, Mississippi.

 

During those years in trying to help heal the black-white problem, I continued to be bothered with the lack of unity in the church.  Christians were supposed to be brothers, and yet they couldn’t worship together.  One of the most moving events of my life happened in 1968 in Vaiden, Mississippi.  The black pastor of the black Methodist Church became suddenly ill before the service, and I was asked to preach.  I was the first white minister ever to preach a sermon in that black church.  I shall never forget the emotional trauma after the service, an outburst of tears and joy over a first step in the hoped for reconciliation between black and white Christians in that little southern village.

 

First Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks had Eskimo members.  It offered me the opportunity to put into effect a practical belief that people of different races and cultures could share the same church because of a commonality in Christ.

 

I drove into Fairbanks with my family on September 30, 1970, amazed that the ground was already covered with snow.

 

I sensed soon both the discouragement of the congregation and the new air of expectation.  The leaders of the church, always the greatest optimists in any congregation, had told me the church would have a thousand members if the pipeline was built.  It never happened for reasons which will be shared later.

 

The only strategy I had when I came to First Presbyterian was to hire an Eskimo to serve the Eskimo people.  From my background, I knew what it meant to be a part of a different culture.  All my grandparents were born in Germany and had moved to a German enclave in the Middle West.  My parents spoke German and at family get togethers, we ate the traditional German foods.

 

I had always smiled at pastors from different backgrounds who served the German congregations.  They often didn’t understand our language, customs, and most of all how we thought and made decisions.  My first two congregations were German.  I was one of them.  We didn’t have to understand one another, we were alike.  We knew many things without having to learn them from each other.  I knew it had to be the same with the Eskimo people.

 

It didn’t take long before it happened – just as if it had been planned that way, like pieces of a puzzle falling together.  Mary Tener came to dinner one evening.  She was serving the Presbyterian Churches on the North Slope as a Christian Education resource person.  She shared that James Nageak was thinking of going on to finish his college education and then proceed to Seminary.  Here was the answer.

 

By the fall of 1971, James moved to Fairbanks to attend the University of Alaska and serve as lay pastor of First Presbyterian Church.  The response of the Eskimo people mushroomed.  At times, during the first year, there were as many as one hundred people in attendance at the afternoon service.

 

Until 1974, the rest of the congregation grew steadily, but not much was happening in Fairbanks.  Until the Native Land Claims question was settled, there would be no pipeline, and so there was no great influx of people.  The church membership was much like it had been for years, a solid core of “old timers” who had been in Fairbanks for years, and a constant parade of other people who came to town for a while and moved on as quickly as they had come.  This was both a joy and a sorrow.  I had never met so many fine people who spent several years in the church and then left.  It was sad, because sustained leadership was hard to find, and even though their stay was short, friendships developed.

 

October 16-18, 1972, became in retrospect, an important date in the history of the church.  The Arctic Area Council, composed of representatives from Eskimo churches in Wainwright, Barrow, Barter Island, Anaktuvuk Pass, Savoonga, and Gambell met at First Presbyterian to discuss their ministry among the Eskimo people.

 

Robert James represented Wainwright and told about an unhappy situation.  Their white pastor refused to have his sermons translated into Eskimo because they were living in the white man’s world, so they might as well get on with learning the language.  Robert James made a plea to the Eskimo Christian leaders to recruit young Eskimos for the ministry.  Rex Okakok, a young Eskimo elder from First Presbyterian Church, heard his plea and shortly thereafter made plans to begin his preparation for the ministry.

 

He first attended Cook Christian Training School in Tempe, Arizona, to prepare to be our lay preacher.  When Nageak left for Seminary, Rex assumed his position at the church, and continued his college work at the University of Alaska.  He was commissioned as a lay preacher by Yukon Presbytery on November 14^th, 1973.

 

One of the strengths of this church has been the abundance of ministers we have had in the congregation.  When I first arrived, both Brian Cleworth and Dean Hickox were worshipping with us, and both were extremely helpful in my adjustment to the church.  When Dr. Walter Soboleff, a Tlingit Presbyterian minister from Southeast Alaska, came to serve on the staff at the University, we quickly invited him to become an “unofficial” staff member of the church and he accepted.  This brought many comments about our Sunday morning worship service, led by an Indian, Eskimo, and German.  In a sense, it symbolized what First Presbyterian Church is all about.

 

In 1973, the Rev. Phillip Gilbert arrived in Fairbanks to take charge of Hospitality House.  Mable Rasmussen’s “year” had lasted longer than she expected, and Phil became her successor.

 

To continue moving in the direction we had been going, the Session asked Phil to join the church staff as an unpaid minister.  Phil’s family was attending the church, and since, in the Presbyterian system, a minister is a member of the Presbytery instead of a local congregation, we wanted him to be a part of our church.  Presbytery didn’t take too easily to the idea, but the call was finally approved, and Phil began to take part in the life of the church, contributing especially in the area of Christian education.  Today the Presbyterian Church allows a minister without a congregation to serve as an unpaid staff member of a church.  He is called a “Parish Associate.”  We pioneered that relationship by calling Phil as an unpaid assistant.

 

In late 1973, the Native Land Claims Act was passed and that threw open the doors for the invasion of the oil companies, as they began preparation for the construction of the pipeline.  Fairbanks was to be a major staging headquarters, with all supplies to the north being sent from here by plane and once the road to the North Slope was built, by truck.

 

The Presbyterians in Alaska, it seems have a habit of being in the “thick of things.”  I became the chairperson of the Social Concerns Committee of the Fairbanks Council of Churches, and later the chairperson of the Social Concerns Task Force of the Alaska Christian Conference.

 

As our local committee pondered what effect the “invasion” would have on our city, we decided to have a forum for the churches to discover what we might do to help.  We asked several community leaders to meet with us, and when they did, they asked us to share our inquiry with the community.  They felt no other group was capable of providing leadership because most groups in town were either politically or economically interested in the pipeline.  And, they said, we were asking a question no one else was raising.  What impact would this invasion have on the human environment?

 

On January 7, 1974, the Social Concerns Committee held an all day forum at the Travelers Inn, with a host of governmental officials and Alyeska officials participating.  They shared, to the best of their knowledge, what might happen to Fairbanks in the next few months as the “army” of pipeline workers came our way.  From my perspective, three major accomplishments were achieved by the forum.  First, the churches thrust themselves into a community leadership role, not by making social pronouncements abut pipeline impact but by letting people talk about eh likely problems and by encouraging them to work for their solution.  The Chamber of Commerce and the Fairbanks Development Corporation were not happy with the church’s intrusion, because in their philosophy, development always takes care of the people problem by offering more jobs and money.  The Social Concerns Committee constantly questioned that premise.

 

Secondly, the Social Concerns Committee learned from the forum that the biggest fear of the citizens of Fairbanks was fear itself and therefore lobbied before the Borough Assembly to have an Impact Information Center funded where data could be constantly gathered about impact of the pipeline in our community.  As far as I know, the Borough was the first governmental unit ever to have this kind of office and I was appointed to serve as the Chairman of the Impact Center’s Advisory Committee.  The Center proved to be one of the most useful projects in the Borough during the pipeline.  It helped the city and Borough cope more adequately with the influx of people and the problems they brought with them.

 

A second forus was held in April of 1975, with nearly 400 community leaders gathering on a Saturday to discuss the future of our city and state in the light of pipeline impact.  Most people are unaware that Lt. Governor Lowell Thomas was present, and was so impressed by what he saw and heard that he helped Governor Hammond initiate the Alaska Public Forum, which now conducts forums throughout Alaska to let the people communicate with government.  Their format is almost identical to the 1975 forum sponsored by the Social Concerns Committee.

 

Thirdly, the first forum got the Pipeline Chaplaincy off the ground.  The Alaska Christian Conference had been trying to get Alyeska to permit a chaplaincy to the men in the isolated camps, but Alyeska ignored the church, saying they were building a pipeline, and didn’t have time to worry about church services.

 

One of Alyeska’s top men, Charles Elder, was at the first forum.  He told the audience how the men would be working seven days a week, twelve hours a day for nine weeks without R and R (Rest and Recreation).  Father Richard McAffrey, assistant pastor at the Cathedral, rose and shared the church’s concern for the emotional and spiritual health of those affected by the pipeline.  He reminded Mr. Elder of the Lord’s command to work six days and rest the seventh.  Mr. Elder had a visible reaction.  He moved back to the podium quickly and assured Father McAffrey that he had heard what McAffrey had said.  He confessed he was a Southern Baptist and knew the commandment.  After the forum, he suggested that the Alaska Christian Conference meet with him in an attempt to have a pipeline chaplaincy.  And so, like the men who rushed for gold, the men who rushed for oil were not devoid of the presence of the church.

 

Our church held a miniature forum for the Session and interested members early in 1975, and concluded that the greatest need in the community was for child care.  Perhaps the most difficult problem of the pipeline era was child neglect.  Big money was being made everywhere, and at times parents were leaving small children in the hands of older children, unskilled babysitters, and even alone, while they worked night and day making the high wages which accompanied the “black gold.”  The Play and Learn Day Care Center, a non-profit organization, was formed by Jo Kuykendall and began using the basement of the Community Building to run its program.

 

The church did not grow dramatically during the rush.  It continued the slow, steady upward pace that had begun after 1969.  Other churches in Fairbanks grew more quickly with First Methodist Church having a rather phenomenal growth.  Why didn’t our church grow in the same way?

 

No one really knows.  I can make a few educated guesses.  With the settlement of the Native Land Claims, there was a movement of younger Natives back to the villages.  New economic opportunities were developing back in their home communities and they didn’t have to face the prejudice in hiring practices that they did in the larger white communities.  Those who found pipeline jobs could afford to live in the villages and “commute” to work.  So there was a slow down-trend in the number of Eskimo people who came to the church.

 

Many of the people from the Lower 48 who came to work on the pipeline were from the southern part of the country, especially Oklahoma and Texas.  Most Southerners aren’t Presbyterians.  Nationally, there are probably 10-15 Baptists for every Presbyterian and there are five Methodists for every one of us.  Therefore, statistically, we didn’t have the potential for growth that the other churches had.

 

Leadership is always an important element in church growth.  There is the possibility that my leadership was not the right kind for a rush.  There were only three ministers who were really involved in the community ministry of the Social Concerns Committee, the Rev. Don Hart of the Episcopal Church, Father Frank Mueller of Sacred Heart Cathedral, and me.  The Catholic Church had several other priests to carry on pastoral work with the newcomers, but the Episcopal Church, like ours, did not grow, because I believe, we were not performing the kind of individual ministries needed to get people into the church.  A lot of people are still suspect of clergy leadership in the community, and many of the old timers and newcomers, I’m sure, were not comfortable with that style of pastoral leadership.

 

A third reason, I feel, is also very plausible.  We have a church of whites and Eskimos and the Eskimos are always very prominent in every service.  Especially the Southerners were not used to a cross-cultural church, coming from areas where racial groups have separate churches.  The Episcopal Church was the same as our, having Indian people as a part of their membership, whereas the all white Methodist church was more like the church back home, both in the makeup of its worshipers and the church program.

 

During the pipeline boom, our Eskimo people felt the increased pressure of prejudice.  In fact, one of our worship services was electrified when one of our Eskimos, during the sharing of concerns, began to weep as she told how her husband had been sent home from a job on the pipeline because the foreman said, “If we don’t watch out, these damn Natives and niggers will take over.”  That Sunday was an appropriate time for a “spur of the moment” sermon about the commitment of we Christians in general, and our church in particular, to uphold one another, and to stand by the members of our church who were suffering from “the new prejudice” which was accompanying the pipeline.  Other Eskimos expressed the same feelings and said they were the last to be hired and the first to be laid off.

 

One of the popular theories of our times is that only conservative churches are growing, but the real key, I feel, is not the theology of such churches, but rather their sameness.  They tend to be a homogeneous unit.  Persons in a given church share “the same general values, socialize freely and are comfortable with each other.”  They are a group of people who consider themselves to be “our kind.”[110]

 

Therefore, the Eskimos of First Presbyterian Church, in the light of today’s church growth patterns are a hindrance to this church if our main goal is growth.

 

An example of this occurred shortly after pipeline impact.  A couple came to the church for quite some time.  They had moved from Iowa, not far from where I had lived before coming to Fairbanks.  One Sunday they were gone and when I later encountered them on the street, they told me they were now attending the Methodist Church because First Presbyterian Church had too many Eskimos in it.

 

However, it depends n one’s viewpoint how one sees church growth.  I believe it is important too, but not at the expense of the Eskimo people.  First Presbyterian Church, in its diversity of people, has a strength that few other congregations will ever have, or even sadder to me, will ever know.  The ability of the church to continue a ministry with Eskimo Christians and not push them out to form their own congregation is one of its abiding strengths.

 

The church’s radio ministry expanded in the spring of 1974 when Eskimo members aired “Savakta Atanigmun” over KJNP for the first time.  Broadcast only during the winter months, the program is meant to reach out to the Eskimo villages along the northern coast of Alaska and Canada.  The program is done almost totally in the Iñupiaq dialect.

 

In August, 1975, in the middle of the pipeline construction, the church granted me a sabbatical leave, which I took at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.  The Rev. Frank Walkup, who had served in Anchorage many years ago, became the interim minister.  He had been in retirement in Florida and was glad to come back to Alaska and assist the church.  He carried on a vigorous interim ministry which culminated in the purchase of a $16,000 Allen electric organ.

 

Upon return from Denver, I learned that Korean people were forming a Presbyterian Church in Anchorage.  At the fall Presbytery meeting in 1976, they petitioned to have a church organized and it was granted.  This looked like an exciting new possibility for Fairbanks, too.

 

I asked the Korean lay minister from Anchorage to come to Fairbanks for a preaching mission, and we set it up for November.  I inquired around town about Korean people, but couldn’t find any.  So, the night came when Mr. Park arrived at the church to preach.  The appointed time of the service was 8:00 p.m.  At 8:00 p.m., no one was there.  Mr. Park went into the sanctuary to pray.  I paced the foyer.  At 8:15 p.m. five Koreans appeared, but two left immediately.  Mr. Park started preaching to the three.  Within an hour, 15 were present.

 

In the summer of 1977 they began worshiping regularly in our sanctuary and in the fall of 1977 they petitioned Presbytery to be organized as the First Korean Presbyterian Church of Fairbanks.  Hopefully, they will continue to use our facilities rather than build a church of their own.

 

The Koreans have presented a new challenge to our cross-cultural ministry.  Only one of them can speak English well enough to communicate with me.  They have come to the English service several times, but say they understand nothing.  However, they have come to America with different goals than the American Natives, who do not want to assimilate.  The Koreas do, to a point.  They are busy learning English and becoming a part of the city’s work force.  They are more educated than the Native people.  It remains to be seen just how much of their Korean culture they will want to keep and how much they will discard, especially as their children become a part of the American culture and lose the Korean language and speak only English.  This presents a new challenge to the church at the corner of 7^th and Cushman and only time will tell how it will be met.

 

The pipeline was officially completed in the summer of 1977, three years after it was begun.  As many of the pipeliners moved south, a new group of workers came to the North Pole area to build a refinery.  For many years First Presbyterian Church had conducted a ministry to the people in the Six Mile area, at the junction of Badger Road and the Richardson Highway.  Finally, it was turned over to the Baptists, but people with Presbyterian backgrounds continued to attend First Presbyterian Church from the North Pole area.  In the summer of 1976, the Session of the church requested Presbytery to organize a new church at North Pole, and suggested we might ask the Methodists to join the effort.  The Methodists accepted and on July 1, 1977, the Rev. Claude Klaver moved to North Pole to form a new church.  A number of the families from First Presbyterian Church will become charter members of that congregation.

 

Presently the pipeline is winding down.  Workers are heading south, back to their homes and new jobs.  Because First Presbyterian Church was not impacted as much by the pipeline as many other churches were, we are not being hurt as greatly by the emigration.  But a gas pipeline is yet to be built.  Where and when isn’t cetain yet.  When it is, Fairbanks will be at the hub of it and a new rush of people will be arriving to construct the gas line.  Again, the history of First Presbyterian Church will be repeated – a ministry to the migrant, a ministry to the local residents, and a ministry to ethnic groups.  The church has had a great track record in the past, and with this heritage it has a tremendous future.  It is not a large church as churches go, with only 265 members at the end of 1976.  But it has shown the strength of a David as it has faced the Goliaths of the far north, and consistently against great odds, it has produced for the glory of God.

 

The church has decided a number of times to stay at the corner of 7^th and Cushman and is now surrounded by downtown buildings.  Oblivious to numerical gains, the church has said it will invest itself in a ministry to people where it is.  This eventually could mean its death, but if that happens, it will be the kind of death or Lord suggested, “For whosoever would lose his life for my sake shall save it.”  This readiness to serve where the church building stands, at present, is one of its strengths.  But this strength will become weakness if ever the church membership comes only from the suburbs and drives back to the church because of a love for its history and tradition.  The downtown apartment dwellers and the downtown poor are now a part of the church membership as are Eskimos, Koreans, Philippinos, and Indians.  If the church ever decides, consciously or unconsciously, to have a middle class ministry to educated and well-to-do families, I believe the handwriting will appear on the wall and the interpretation will be the same as to the Babylonian kingdom, “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.”

 

 

END NOTES

 

---

[1] Clarence C. Hulley, Alaska Past and Present, (Portland: Binfords and Mort), 1953, p. 279.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Hudson Struck, The Alaska Missions of the Episcopal Church, (Seattle: Facsimile Reproductions), 1968, p. 117.

[4] C. L. Andrews, The Story of Alaska, (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Co.), 1931, p. 187.

[5] Agnes Rush Burr, Alaska, Our Beautiful Northland of Opportunity, (Boston: The Page Company), 1919, p. 145.

[6] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, “Historical Statement,” Written by James H. Condit, p. 1.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Hon. James Wickersham, Old Yukon, (Washington, D.C.: Washington Law Book Co.), 1938, pp. 186-187.

[9] S. Hall Young, Hall Young of Alaska, (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company), 1927, p. 409.

[10] Ibid., p. 407.

[11] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, “Historical Statement,” Written by James H. Condit, p. 3.

[12] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 410.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid., p. 411.

[15] Ibid., p. 412.

[16] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of March 25, 1918.

[17] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, pp. 414-415.

[18] Andrews, The Story of Alaska, p. 188.

[19] Morgan B. Sherwood, Ed., Alaska and Its History, (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 1967, p. 400.

[20] Burr, Alaska, Our Beautiful Northland of Opportunity, p. 145.

[21] James H. Condit, Diary, 1912-1950, (Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks), Wednesday, March 26, 1913.

[22] James H. Condit, Letter to First Presbyterian Church on Their 40^th Anniversary.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Fairbanks News Miner, July 28, 1913.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of March 8, 1914.

[30] Ibid., Meeting of September 20, 1914.

[31] Fairbanks News Miner, February 25, 1914.

[32] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Annual Congregational Meeting, March 6, 1916.

[33] Mable P. Bingle, Compiler, Presbytery of Yukon, 1899-1929, (From the minutes of Yukon Presbytery loaned by the Historical Association of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.), p. 19.

[34] Burr, Alaska, Our Beautiful Northland of Opportunity, pp. 146-149.

[35] Ibid.

[36] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of April 11, 1920.

[37] Ibid., Meetings of January 16, and April 20, 1920.

[38] Fairbanks News Miner, September 29, 1920.

[39] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Congregational Meeting, March 10, 1921.

[40] Ibid., Minutes of Session, Meeting of May 21, 1922.

[41] Ibid., Meeting of July 25, 1923.

[42] Ibid., Meeting of November 2, 1925.

[43] Ibid., Meetings of November 30, 1925 and June 8, 1926.

[44] Fairbanks News Miner, September 6, 1927.

[45] Ibid., May 4, 1924.

[46] Paul Solka, Letter to Charles Gray, October 10, 1976.

[47] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of July 7, 1929.

[48] Ibid., Meeting of September 28, 1925.

[49] Ibid., Meeting of March 1, 1927.

[50] Bingle, Presbytery of Yukon, 1899-1929, p. 32.

[51] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Special Congregational Meeting, October 20, 1930.

[52] Ibid., Meeting of June 22, 1931.

[53] Mary Lee Davis, Uncle Sam’s Attic, (Boston: W. A. Wilde Company), 1930, pp. 88-89.

[54] Florence Hayes, Arctic Gateway, (New York: Friendship Press), 1940, p. 14.

[55] Ibid., pp. 14-15.

[56] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Annual Congregational Meeting, March 29, 1933.

[57] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of June 14, 1940.

[58] Ibid., Meeting of November 16, 1933.

[59] Ibid., Meeting of September 21, 1944.

[60] Ibid., Meeting of September 25, 1942.

[61] Ibid., Meeting of August 1, 1944.

[62] Bernice Bangs Morgan, The Very Thought of Thee, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House), 1952, p. 41.

[63] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, 1944 Annual Report.

[64] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of November 7, 1944.

[65] Morgan, The Very Thought of Thee, p. 86.

[66] Harding Katairoak, Interview, May, 1977.

[67] N. Harry Champlin, Letter to the Author, October 21, 1976.

[68] Mary Ahgook Darling, Interview, May, 1977.

[69] Champlin, Letter.

[70] Morgan, The Very Thought of Thee, p. 88.

[71] Fred Koschman, Letter to the Author, August 30, 1976.

[72] Darling, Interview, May, 1977.

[73] Camplin, Letter to the Author, October 2, 1976.

[74] Mable Rasmussen, Interview, November, 1976.

[75] Darling, Interview, May, 1977.

[76] Champlin, Letter to the Author, October 2, 1976.

[77] Rasmussen, Interview, November, 1976.

[78] Neil Monroe, Letter to the Author, October 29, 1976.

[79] Ibid.

[80] Ibid.

[81] Rasmussen, Interview, November, 1976.

[82] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of March 25, 1945.

[83] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Annual Report, 1945.

[84] Darling, Interview, May, 1977.

[85] Koschman, Letter to the Author, August 30, 1976.

[86] Rasmussen, Interview, November, 1976.

[87] Ibid

[88] Mable P. Bingle, Compiler, History of the Presbytery of Yukon, 1929-1950, (From the minutes of Yukon Presbytery), p. 41.

[89] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Minutes of Session, Meeting of May 18, 1948.

[90] Ibid., October 17, 1948.

[91] Ibid., April 15, 1948.

[92] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Annual Report, 1949.

[93] Koschman, Letter to the Author, August 30, 1976.

[94] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Annual Congregational Meeting, January 13, 1953.

[95] Ibid.

[96] Ibid.

[97] Rasmussen, Interview, November, 1976.

[98] Ibid.

[99] Ibid.

[100] Ibid.

[101] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Session Minutes, Meeting of December 4, 1959.

[102] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Annual Report, 1960.

[103] Ibid., 1965.

[104] The Alaska Presbyterian, vm. 4. No. 2, Summer, 1969, p. 4.

[105] First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, AK, Session Minutes, Meeting of June 24, 1968.

[106] Ibid., November 6, 1967.

[107] Bryan Cooper, Alaska, the Last Frontier, (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc.), 1973, p. 83.

[108] Ibid.

[109] I use the first person in the next section rather than the more cumbersome “the present pastor” or “the writer.”

[110] David Alden Telfer, Sociological and Theological Foundations for Church of God Ministry in Ethnic Minority Communities in the United States, (Denver: Iliff School of Theology), 1975, p. 53.