Chapter 2: THE WHITE ALASKAN AND THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WHITE ALASKAN AND THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Russian Alaska

 

In the eighteenth century, it was still unknown whether Asia and North America were connected.  Commissioned by Peter the Great, Vitus Bering, a Dane, was designated to find out.  He made two trips, the first in 1731 when he sailed through the straits which now bear his name.  Although that voyage confirmed that Asia and North America were separated, Bering still had no idea whether it was an island he had encountered to the east or really the continent he expected to find.[1]

 

Bering sailed a second time from Petropavlovsk on June 4, 1771, with two ships.  They soon lost one another.  The St. Paul first sighted land on July 15^th.  They sent two small boats out to explore, since there was no adequate harbor.  Neither boat returned.  Afraid and running low on water, the St. Paul headed back for Russia.

 

Bering’s ship, the St. Peter, sailed into the vicinity of what is now the northern part of the Alaska panhandle.  Their first view of land was the magnificent 18,000 foot Mt. St. Elias, but they shipwrecked and the crew spent nine months building another ship.  During that time, Bering and many crewmen died of scurvy.  The survivors did return to Russia only to find out they had been given up for dead.[2]

 

Once Alaska was discovered, the Russian traders migrated westward to grab the fur wealth of their new possession.  The seas were teaming with sea otters in the Aleutians and millions of fur seals in the Pribilofs.

 

Almost all the histories written about the Russian presence in Alaska tell about the greed of the men who came to reap the riches of the new land.  Conservation was not a part of their mind-set.  They moved from island to island, killing all the animals without any thought of saving a harvest for the future.  In just 25 years, the sea cow was extinct.

 

In 40 years, the Aleut population almost became an endangered species, dropping from 25,000 to 8,000.[3]  To get more furs, they enslaved “male Aleuts to do their hunting for them while they lived like sultans in the villages with the Aleut women.”[4]

 

An illustration of this total lack of concern for human life is a Russian captain who wondered how many heads a musket ball could penetrate.  He lined up twelve Aleuts, one behind another, and fired.  Nine of the twelve Aleuts died.[5]

 

The first Russians to come were traders, adventurers, outlaws, army deserters, and runaways from forced labor camps.[6]  “They were generally infected with venereal diseases and acted like insane men when they saw how easy it was to get Aleut girls.”[7]  Their general philosophy was, “God was high in His heaven and the Tsar far away.”[8]

 

The Aleuts tried to fight back at first.  In the 1790’s they revolted, killing the crews of five ships, but the Russians took terrible revenge, killing and torturing hundreds of Aleuts and destroying their villages.[9]

 

It took a long while for the Russian government to hear about the treatment of the Aleuts.  Russian America was separated from Moscow by 10,000 miles of land and sea, and part of that land was desolate Siberia.

 

Finally an expedition was sent to report on conditions in the new possession.  The secretary of the expedition wrote, “These people lord it over the inhabitants with more despotism than generally falls to the lot of princes, keeping the islanders in a state of abject slavery.”[10]

 

Orders from the government were sent back in 1787 “denouncing the practices and warning all navigators and traders against a repetition of the acts.”[11]  But the government was too distant and there was no local government to enforce the edicts of Moscow.  So the injustices against the Aleuts continued.

 

The Russian American Trading Company was established in 1784 and the first Russian settlement was made at Kodiak.  This company became the dominant government body in Alaska.  In 1790, the Company came under the leadership of Aleksandr Andreevich Baronov.  He became the first governor of Russian America and “looms as the outstanding personality in the century and a quarter of Russia’s American colony.”[12]

 

 He was a trader in Siberia when offered the job.  He left his wife and child behind when he went to America and never saw them again.  There he lived with an Indian woman, who bore him two children.  When he was old, and ready to retire, he planned on returning to Russia, but died aboard the ship on the way home.

 

He was both the friend and enemy of the Russian missionaries who came later.  He provided the funds for the first Christian Church built in the North Pacific in 1796, but never got along with the Russian priests because he was living with a woman other than his wife.  His Indian mate eventually “converted” to the Russian Orthodox faith.

 

It was probably the continuing abuse of the Aleuts that motivated Empress Catherine to send missionaries to the new colony in 1794.  This was the first mission ever sent by the Russian Orthodox Church across a sea.  Eight monks volunteered.  “They were plain, peasant men and fisher-folk of limited education and restricted outlook, but zealous in faith and ardent in their devotions.”[13]

 

It was quite a day in Kodiak when they arrived.  They must have looked strange, at least to the Natives.  “All, except one, who had a fair beard and hair, had long hair flowing to their shoulders and luxuriant black beards.”[14]

 

As they descended from the ship, Baronov kneeled with the other Russians as the priests “made the sign of the cross, gave thanks for their safe arrival. . . .and invoked the blessing of God on Russian America.”[15]

 

This is what the priests discovered in Kodiak.

 

The village swarmed with children, dozens of whom the Russian 

hunters had begotten of the Aleut women . . . .The hunters took 

mates because the women were as essential to domestic economy 

as they were pleasant for creature comforts.  No male fingers were 

capable of doing the intricate sewing necessary to make waterproof 

mukluks, seagoing kamleikas, or the extraordinary feather parkas.  

A few trifling gifts to the girl’s father cemented the alliance.[16]

 

The priests soon set about “Christianizing” Kodiak.  They found the Aleuts much more responsive than their own countrymen.  Father Iosaph reported back to the Russian Church,

 

During the winter many Kenai and Chugach hostages living here 

were willing to be baptized, but this has been my only pleasure.  

The Russians are a hindrance, not a help, to my ministry because 

of their depravity, which I find in startling contrast to the strong 

moral fiber of the untutored natives.  Only with the greatest difficulty 

did I persuade a few of the hunters to marry their concubines; the rest 

would not listen.[17]

 

A report about a year later by Father Herman suggests that time made success come more quickly.  “The Lord be praised!  We have baptized more than 7000 Americans and have performed more than two thousand marriage ceremonies. . . .”[18]

 

Three of the Russian missionaries are noted in the history of the Russian period in Alaska.  

 

Father Herman was among the first group of priests to arrive at Kodiak.  After a continuing dispute with Baronov, both over the treatment of the Aleuts and the “licentious” behavior of the Russian traders, Father Herman withdrew from Kodiak and went to the uninhabited island of Elovoi.[19]  Here he remained for the rest of his life, working with the Aleuts.  He was elevated to sainthood by the Orthodox Church many years later.

 

Father Innocentius Veniaminoff began his work among the Aleuts at Unalaska in 1824.  Sheldon Jackson wrote of him, “He was the one among all Russian priests to Alaska that left an untarnished reputation and seemed to possess the true missionary spirit.”[20]  Hudson Struck, the pioneer Episcopal missionary, says of him, “His active intervention on behalf of the Aleuts, his devoted labors amongst them, his writings and translations, justify the very honorable place that is given to him in Alaskan history.”[21]  He later was made a bishop and ultimately became Metropolitan of Moscow, the highest position in the Russian Church.

 

Father Juvenal went to serve the Natives along the shores of Lake Iliamna, and lost his life.  Some consider him a Christian martyr.  Others have their doubts.  Juvenal was ignorant of the Native culture, and it proved to be his end.  The Natives could not understand why a man his age was single.  So they decided he should have a wife.  In the silence of the night, two young women crept into his bed.  In the morning, Juvenal came out of his house weeping that he had sinned grievously against God, and that he had been unfaithful to his priestly vows of celibacy.  Rejecting the “wives” he was given by the Natives was a mistake.  It was an affront to them.  So, led by the shamans, Juvenal was murdered by the villagers.

 

By the time of the American purchase, the Russian Church had eleven priests and sixteen deacons at work in seven missionary districts.  They claimed a membership of 12,140.

 

The Russians were not the only ones interested in Alaska.  The Hudson Bay Company followed the Yukon River down from Canada and established Fort Yukon in 1847.  The Hudson Bay Company also was moving northward along the Canadian Pacific Coast and established an outpost at Wrangell.  “In 1825, Russia signed a treaty with England defining the boundaries,”[22] but nothing was done about the American whalers along the Arctic Coast.

 

Because Russia had never colonized Alaska, it was hard to protect her interests, especially in the interior and even along the distant coasts.  Being at war with England made the Russians leery of having Alaska become an English colony, and aware of the American doctrine of “Manifest Destiny,” they may have thought the United States would take the territory.  So, why not reap some profit from the territory by selling it?

 

The Russian minister to the United States in the 1860’s favored sale of Alaska because

 

The status of the Indians on the islands under our rule had not been 

improved either physically or morally, and the tribes on the mainland 

continued to be as savage and hostile as they were at the time of the 

discovery (and) no effort has been made as yet to explore the interior 

of the country and to try to benefit by the resources it could offer.[23]

 

The Russians eventually sold Alaska to the United States for $7 million, a little less than 2 cents per acre.  The purchase caused a great deal of doubt in Washington over the wisdom of the acquisition.  In a Congressional debate it was said that Alaska was worthless and nothing more than a desolate uninhabitable waste.

 

The New York Tribune speculated what it would cost to subdue Alaska’s aboriginals.  They noted it had cost the government $115,000 to kill one Indian on the Nebraska plains and then estimated that it might run as high as $300,000 per Native in Alaska.[24]

 

On October 18 1867, Alaska was formally surrendered by Russia to the United States.  One-hundred twenty-six years of Russian exploitation had ended and a new era of exploitation by another government was about to begin.

 

 

 

From the Purchase of Alaska to the Gold Rush Era

 

There are a lot of similarities between the Russian and American occupation of Alaska.  The first American invasion of the new colonial possession consisted of “a motley crowd of adventurers.  Saloons and houses of prostitution opened for the first time in the land.  Traders, speculators, politicians, gamblers, and harlots made their advent.”[25]  S. Hall Young observed “that the most vicious degraded, ruined, and hopeless savages I have ever met in the Alaska were educated white men from refined homes . . . .There was something wanting in the character of all these men, something weak, something ignoble.”[26]

 

The army was left to govern the new territory and it did so ineffectively for the next ten years.  Thus, early Alaskan history was one without law.  When all of the military garrisons but Sitka were closed, “the territory . . . .went under the rule of the fur traders, almost as completely as it was during the regime of the Russian American Company.”[27]

 

The soldiers, themselves, apparently joined the motley crowd who wallowed in the sordid atmosphere.  “If we are to believe the testimony of the time, the influence of the soldiery was devoted to debauching the inhabitants, both native and Russian.”[28]

 

S. Hall Young tells of the situation at Ft. Wrangell.

 

The moral conditions . . . .were indescribably bad. . . .The soldiers had done 

them little good and much evil.  The town is full of half-breed children.  

The most loathsome of diseases was universally prevalent. . . .Many of the 

poor little ones came into the world covered with scales and most of the 

babies died. . . .Hootch was made in more than half of the community 

houses.  Polygamy, slavery, drunkenness and constant immorality – what a category![29]

 

When the army finally left Alaska in 1877, “their record during their occupation is nearly a blank page of history. . . .In some ways the land was worse off at their departure than at their coming.”[30]

 

In addition to their low moral tone, they did not govern effectively.  In Sitka, a white man named Parker murdered two Indians.  The military board investigated the matter, returned the decision that “the act was not justifiable,” and then discharged the murderer for the lack of jurisdiction over the offense.[31]

 

The Indians, on the other hand, were dealt with in a harsher way.  In Juneau, when the monthly steamer came in, a “properly convicted” Indian was stung up and later, as it left, another was hanged.[32]

 

On August 10, 1877, Sheldon Jackson and Amanda McFarland reached Fort Wrangell.  They were the first Protestant American missionaries to reach Alaska, but not the only missionaries.  Mrs. McFarland wrote of her arrival in Wrangell, “Then to add to all the other discouragements, a Catholic priest came up on this steamer.”[33]

 

It is to be noted that Jackson did not initiate the mission at Wrangell, but only took over a work begun by a Christian Indian named Clah.  Phillip McKay (his English name) had come to Fort Wrangell from Fort Simpson in Canada to work for the army.  When he saw there was no Christian church, he began preaching and it is reported his congregation was in the hundreds.

 

When Mrs. McFarland “took over” the work, Clah remained, but although still young, he died shortly thereafter.  Had he lived, perhaps the whole missionary thrust in Alaska could have been different.  An indigenous church might have been possible under his leadership.

 

Jackson had been wanting to get missionaries into Alaska long before.  He had written, “When in 1867 this vast territory . . . .was turned over to the United States, the call of God’s providence came to the American Church to enter in and possess the land for Christ.”[34]

 

He urged the church, before the country celebrated its Centennial in 1876, to extend the “work so that the Presbyterian Church could celebrate the completion of the first century of our national existence with missionaries in every state and territory.”[35]

 

Although he didn’t make it by the centennial, it wasn’t long after that he got Amanda McFarland to go to Wrangell where she took over the church started by Clah and started a school for girls.  When Jackson returned to the lower states, he discovered the mission board was not happy with what he had done.  They were low on money and felt they might not be able to support the new work.  However, Jackson promised to raise the money and he did.

 

He also recruited missionaries.  S. Hall Young and John Brady went north in 1878.  Young remained at Wrangell, while Brady went to Sitka and started a school for Native children.

 

Between 1879 and 1884, Jackson made four more trips to Alaska.  When in the states, “he became a one-man lobby in support of a better way of life in Alaska.”[36]  He raised money for the work of the churches and schools and recruited new missionaries to help the work grow.  When in Alaska, he visited unchurched villages, organized new churches, and helped keep the schools operating.  The year 1884 marked the end of the first phase of Jackson’s efforts in the new territory.

 

Six Presbyterian missions were in operation by then, with seven 

missionaries in the field.  Seventeen teachers had been recruited 

and the mission-related school system had an enrollment of over 

five hundred students.  All this resulted directly or indirectly from

Jackson’s efforts.[37]

 

The second phase of Jackson’s marriage to Alaska began when Congress passed the Organic Act of 1884, a measure which provided some government for Alaska.  As early as 1868, efforts were made in Congress to provide some sort of rule for Alaskans.  “Propositions were made to annex Alaska to Canada, to annihilate time and space by making it a county of the territory of Washington, to sell it to a private company and other absurd suggestions.”[38]  Now after many years of virtually no government, the new law provided Alaska “a governor, a judge, a marshal, a district attorney, a clerk, and four United States commissioners and deputy marshals.  Schools were provided to a very limited extent, the importation of intoxicating liquors was prohibited, mining laws were instituted. . . .”[39]  It was to become, for the most part, a government run by carpetbaggers.

 

In 1885, Sheldon Jackson was appointed Commissioner of Education.  And immediately his problems began, mostly because of his totally different philosophy about how the people, and in particular the Natives, of the territory should be brought into “American life.”

 

Governor Kinkead, the first governor, was considered by S. Hall Young as “a worn-out political hack.”[40]  Kinkead obviously felt the same about the clergy.  He said that “the missionaries were not liked by the white people” in Alaska.[41]

 

He appeared to be much more concerned about the whites of the Territory than the aboriginals.  He wanted to build the economic base of the territory on the miner and merchant, while Jackson distrusted these people, especially in their association with the Native people.  Jackson was more concerned about the socio-cultural transformation of the land than the economic development.[42]

 

Jackson set out to implement his philosophy by establishing a school system.  “The first teachers were nominated by the various mission boards, which were doing Christian work in the regions where the schools were established.  Thus, a semi-religious character was given to these government schools.”[43]

 

Kinkead was opposed to using the missionaries.  “I think,” he said, “it would be unwise, certainly unpopular; to place the (school) work in the hands of the missionaries.”[44]

 

But Jackson prevailed.  “He was too aware of the shameful treatment accorded the American Indian to have any illusions about the attitudes of whites toward Alaska’s aborigines. . . .”[45]

 

Jackson was hard-nosed in his approach.  At Dutch Harbor, a Native woman took her child out of school, and when Jackson had a U. S. Commissioner try to bring the child back to school, the woman barricaded her home.  The door was bashed in, and the child taken to school.  “The affair served notice on everyone that Jackson would not tolerate interference with the operation of the schools nor allow anyone to obstruct their prime purpose, namely to train the native children to live in a world that was changing rapidly.”[46]

 

The whites’ objections to Jackson really appeared to be his emphasis on Native education.  The appropriations he received to run the school system each year were relatively small, and the white population wanted more of the money spent for the white students.  Lazell calls his decision, to stand firm and see that the Natives received an education, “courageous.”[47]

 

Ernest Gruening, looking at Jackson’s work from the distance of history says,

 

More attention was paid to the natives than to the whites. . . .Some 

of the increasing white population viewed it as undue partiality. . . .

The opposition to their efforts was poorly founded. . . .Retrospectively 

the work of the early missionaries of all denominations is today 

appreciated in Alaska.  To the extent of their endeavor they helped 

fill the void created by governmental nonfeasance. . . .In fact, much 

of the progress in assimilating the native to the white culture was due 

to the early missionary effort. . . .[48]

 

 

Part of the problem surrounding the fight over the schooling of the Natives centered in racial prejudice.  Prejudice came with the Russians, then the whalers, and then with the Americans who came to Alaska.  Even the missionaries were not exempt.  The racism was grounded in the myth that the whites dominated because of their intellectual, social, and cultural superiority.  “The white man did not choose to exert control or dominance over the native.  It was simply an ‘Act of Nature,’ an external force.”[49]

 

Governor Brady commented about the racial prejudice at the turn of the century and noted “the extent of prejudice among the white people against the natives, especially in the churches.”  He said, “The one thing wanting in it all is Christian charity.  In fact, we are more truly heathen than the natives.”[50]

 

In Juneau and Sitka, the whites not only had their own schools, they had their own churches as well.  “Jackson had questioned this trend, but tradition and overwhelming white sentiment had brought it to pass. . . .The superiority of the white race was accepted as a social truism.”[51]

 

Most racism was of a more subtle type, but at times it was open and brazen.  S. Hall Young’s attitude was revealed when during gold rush days, a young Englishman asked him to perform his marriage to an Eskimo woman.  Young responded,

 

Surly you don’t wish me to marry you to that squaw?  I shall not be a 

party to a crime like that.  You, an Englishman of higher education and 

standing, and I understand a younger brother of an English lord, to 

“mate with a narrow forehead” like that is scandalous.[52]

 

Thus, believing the Alaskan Native to be inferior, it seemed strange to white Alaskans for Sheldon Jackson to educate them.  However, Jackson felt “it would be wiser to spend a few thousands of dollars each year to civilize the natives than to spend far more trying to subdue them.”[53]

 

The pinnacle of Jackson’s power came when John Brady was appointed the territorial governor in 1897.  He had been one of Jackson’s first missionary recruits in Alaska who had later gone into business in Sitka.  The two men “saw eye to eye.”[54]

 

Sheldon Jackson had been elected moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1897, and because of his many years of government service, had a great deal of influence both with the Congress and with the Presbyterian Church.  It was said that the “Alaska policy” formulated by the Presbyterians was so strong that “the party leaders were unwilling to oppose it.”[55]

 

However, there was opposition to Jackson in Alaska.  Jackson would not bend on the issues and therefore, many officials “thought him an unreasonable man.”[56]  And, it was at this very point that Jackson was insensitive.  “He took it for granted no one would question the sincerity of his motives. . . .”[57]

 

He retired in 1906, about the same time Governor Brady ended his term as head of the Alaskan government.  Thus, the period of “Presbyterian power” was over, and Sheldon Jackson, the controversial figure, faded into history.  It depends on one’s vantage point how he is judged.  I do not agree with his philosophy of assimilation, but then I am not living in his time, when that philosophy was accepted as “the gospel truth.”  I am not sure if he was a “visionary” who saw the need to change the Native because he saw the handwriting on the wall, or if he was operating out of a total commitment to the philosophy that the “white” culture was far superior to the Native culture, and the sooner the Native abandoned his old ways for the new, the better.  I suspect the latter was his philosophy, and if it was, then certainly it was mellowed by a deep love and concern for the Native people.  Although he accomplished a great deal as Commissioner of Education, I cannot help but wonder how different the church in Alaska might have been had Jackson remained in charge instead of Young.  The condescending paternalism towards the Native and outright prejudice of Young certainly had to leave its mark on the church.  Young was far too influential for it not to have “made an impact.”

 

Hudson Struck’s tribute probably summarizes what Sheldon Jackson was all about.

 

Dr. Sheldon Jackson was a very remarkable character. . . .I do not 

know that he was particularly eloquent:  we do not read of thousands 

hanging upon his lips; nor particularly scholarly; his writings are but 

journalism.  But he was a man of bold, outreaching conceptions and 

great resourcefulness in executing them; a man possessed with the 

momentum of a restless energy that, debarred from one avenue to the 

attainment of a purpose achieved, flung itself promptly, with unchanging 

vigor upon another; a man that would not be denied, the type that has 

advanced so greatly the outposts of Christianity in all ages of its progress.

 

Alaska owes very much to Dr. Sheldon Jackson, and it is grateful to the 

present writer to take this opportunity of paying tribute to his memory.  Misrepresented and calumniated, withstood to the uttermost by venal 

officials, attacked by all those whose interests lay in degrading the native 

peoples, he went straight forward with his beneficent projects, perhaps 

not always in the most tactful way – men burning with zeal have not always 

time to be tactful – but inflexible, indomitable, and, at last, to an amazing 

degree, successful.[58]

 

By the time Sheldon Jackson was getting ready to retire, a new age had begun in Alaska.  A swarm of people had headed north because of the discovery of gold.

 

 

From the Gold Rush Era to World War II

 

Alaska’s history has always been one of rushes.  The first influx came after the purchase of the territory, and the second mass migration was precipitated by gold.  It all began, actually in Canada, on a warm summer morning near the end of July in 1896.  Camped on Rabbit Creek, near where the Klondike River flows into the Yukon, George Carmack’s Indian wife had cooked breakfast as usual.  She went to the stream to wash out the skillet, and found gold in her pan when she lifted it from the water.[59]

 

It was a year later when a ship docked in Seattle with what the newspapers said was a “ton of gold,” and the Klondike legend started and so did the great gold rush.[60]

 

S. Hall Young had been out of Alaska since 1888.  He had served churches in California and Iowa before being called to his Alma Mater, Wooster College, in 1895, as professor of Biblical history and as pastor of the College Church.[61]

 

In 1897, he was considered for the governorship of Alaska by President McKinley, but lost out to a fellow Presbyterian minister, John Brady.  His opportunity to return to Alaska came, however, because of the gold discovery on the Klondike.  Young had pleaded with the Mission Board to send pastors to serve the men who were stampeding north, so the Home Mission Board invited him to go to the Klondike.[62]

 

Throngs of people sailed north from San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver.  There were three routes to the Klondike.  One could sail north by ship to the Bering Sea and then take a sternwheeler up the Yukon River to Dawson.  This was by far the longest, time-consuming route, and most expensive, although the easiest.  Since northern summers are short and the work period limited, most of the men opted for Skagway at the end of Lynn Canal in Southeast Alaska.  From here they could climb the White Pass, or they could go four miles north to the settlement of Dyea where they could climb the Chilkoot Trail.  The Indians in the area had previously constructed a trail across the pass so they could trade with Interior Indians.

 

Within a few weeks, 25,000 men were dumped on the beach at Skagway, and a scene of courage and heartbreak began.  Most of the men had no knowledge of survival in the North.  “The northland has never taken kindly to those who came ill prepared or who showed little respect for her changing moods.”[63]  Their visions of glory soon turned into nightmares.  Much of the equipment they carried with them had to be abandoned because it was not practical to carry it over the steep passes.  One could hire the Chilkoot Indians and others for $50 a day to hike gear up the mountain, but most of them didn’t have that kind of money.  Some tried horses, but Young reports thousands of their carcasses were lying in the gorges or fallen on the rocks with their packs still on their backs.[64]

 

The first Sunday Young was in Skagway, he conducted an open air worship service.  It seems to me, this marks a specific beginning of the Presbyterian Church to minister to the white population of Alaska.  Previously, the ministry was almost totally to the Native people.  Because in the early days of the Territory’s history there was so much antagonism between the missionaries and the whites, there seemed to be a natural barrier which prohibited a ministry to the whites.  Most of the early new citizens weren’t the church going kind anyway.  Since there was no law, the missionaries were the only ones who prodded their conscience against the lust and greed so prevalent at the time.

 

Young chose the easier of the two trails at Skagway, the Chilkoot.  He packed his stove on his back and made relays of all the goods he could carry.  Once over the pass, he made it to Whitehorse and rafted down the Yukon to Dawson, arriving two months after he had left Wooster, Ohio.

 

Young says White Pass and the Chilkoot Trail “was the sieve through which the fine flour was sifted, the gold rocker which was to separate the nuggets from the worthless gravel.”[65]

 

Young had a much better estimation of these whites than he did of those in Southeast Alaska.  He said, “The majority of them (were) men of intelligence and imagination who were lured by the love of adventure as well as the lust for gold.”[66]  He even felt differently about some of the people in less-reputable occupations.  He said, “I learned to think more of my fellow men, even gamblers and saloon keepers, than I ever had done before, so many were the instances of loving kindness and self-sacrifice.”[67]

 

Gold fever is not just a catch phrase.  When one has it, “no one worries too much about the future; each man was convinced that he would strike it rich before the end came.  This was a symptom of the gold fever: the present was the only time that mattered.”[68]

 

They paid a price for their hunger for gold.  Many died heading for Dawson over the passes, some drowned in the rivers, others perished in the cold or died of violence.  During the first winter in Dawson, there was starvation.  Not nearly enough supplies had been brought over the trail and there wasn’t enough food in Dawson to meet the needs of all the miners.

 

The rush to Dawson even affected the Indians near Fort Yukon.  They were impoverished and starving because all of the food and supplies were sent to Dawson.  Even when the trading post had supplies, the prices had been inflated so dramatically by the demand; the Indians could not pay for them.[69]

 

For most, Dawson was the second act of a shattered dream, the experience in getting there the first.  A few got rich, but most did not.  “They chased each rainbow to where it touched the earth only to find that others had gotten there first and seized the treasure.”[70]

 

S. Hall Young arrived at a mostly tent city.  Many were building log houses frantically to get ready for the winter.  He soon purchased a log cabin for $500 in which to hold worship services.  

 

Judge Wickersham made this comment about the church’s ministry to the stampeders:

 

It has been noticed that whereas the devil gets his agents on the front 

sleds of a mining stampede, the followers of the Meek and Lowly are 

generally a close second at the finish.  The. . . .Church. . . .entered into 

active competition with the saloons and dance halls to “beat hell” as one 

of the clerics put it.[71]

 

When it was discovered that Dawson was in Canadian territory, Young turned over the work to the Canadian Presbyterian Church.  The Presbyterian Church at Dawson and another built at Lake Bennet are no longer in use and will soon be nothing more than decayed ruins.

 

For the next few years, Hall Young did little more than follow the various gold rushes.  The bigger ones were at Nome and Fairbanks, with smaller ones at numerous creeks throughout the interior.  This became the first real, significant intrusion of the white man into interior Alaska, and “the wildlife disappeared whenever the miners appeared.”[72]  It was common for the passengers of sternwheelers on the rivers to shoot moose indiscriminately from the boat.  “Great plains buffalo had been shot to pieces by passengers aboard steam locomotives.  Now the machine devastator had been taken to the water.”[73]

 

Not all were bad, however, and apparently others agreed with Hall Young about the better caliber of men coming to Alaska.  Historian C. L. Andrews says the pioneers into the Yukon area “were men of sterling qualities, and fine types of American frontiersmen . . . outstanding characters for honesty, fearless faith in the country and fellowship for their brother pioneers.”[74]

 

Most of the churches S. Hall Young started are no longer in existence.  The churches sprang up with the enthusiasm of a rush, and then faded like the diminishing gold.  The Presbytery of Yukon was organized in Eagle July 26, 1899.  That church is no longer in existence.  The Episcopalians own a little log church in the village, but Central Alaskan Missions, a Baptist oriented group, supplies the minister.

 

In Rampart, after holding a worship service on the banks of a river, Young “raised sufficient money to purchase a mission site.”[75]  Today there is no church in Rampart, but the Indian people who live there are served by the Episcopalians.

 

On the way to Nome, Young met Sheldon Jackson at St. Michael who told him, “Hurry on. . . .You will find the greatest task of your life in that new town.”[76]  It turned out that his greatest task was not his regular ministry to the miners, but to recuperate from typhoid.  For seven and a half weeks he burned with fever and it took another three months before he could walk again.  He was kept alive with milk from the only cow in Nome.[77]

 

With all his work in Nome, he was told to hand over the church to the Congregationalists.  For some time the Congregational Church existed in Nome until it federated with the Methodists.  Today the church is Methodist.  A recent Presbyterian Church was established there for Eskimos from St. Lawrence Island.

 

Young organized a church at Council City, 85 miles northeast of Nome.  It no longer exists.  St. Michael became an occasional preaching point.  There is no Presbyterian work there today.  A church was organized in Teller, but no longer exists.  He sent the Rev. Egbert Koonce to Chena, the town near Fairbanks.  A lot was bought for a church and later, in 1904, Young moved the Rev. Howard Frank to organize and serve the church.  The town of Chena no longer exists, and the church died with it.  A building was erected at Knik, but the church did not take root.  A church was started in Ruby, but it has ceased to exist.  Fairbanks seems to be the only church planted by S. Hall Young during the gold rush that survived.

 

It is interesting to notice the similarities between S. Hall Young’s “itinerant” ministry and the ministry to the mass of people who swarmed into Alaska to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.  The Pipeline Ministry was an ecumenical venture with Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Assembly of God, Nazarene, and Presbyterian chaplains working the line.  This time no churches were established, since all the camps were temporary.  Instead of being transported from place to place by boat, foot, or dog team, the pipeline chaplains went by air.  But it was the same ministry – a ministry to persons far from home and family, persons who needed someone to remind them of the love of God.

 

With the organization of Yukon Presbytery in 1899, Young had other ministers to assist him.  The fledgling Presbytery had responsibilities for the newly organized churches in the mining areas and for the Eskimo work at Barrow and on St. Lawrence Island.

 

The work of one of these early pastors is shared by the Rev. James Kirk, who with his wife, came to Eagle in 1899.  He had been in a Philadelphia pastorate for seventeen years when he decided to go to the Yukon.  He and Mrs. Kirk went to Skagway, up the Chilkoot Trail to Lake Bennet, and then by river steamer to Eagle.  “For a month we held services in the tent of a saloon keeper who closed his bar night and morning and gave us sway.  Later he let us have his large cabin which he was using in part for a warehouse, and there amidst the barrels of beer we held meetings for two months or more.”[78]

 

Later, when a cabin of two rooms was build, he held three services on Sunday, one for the whites and another for the Indians, both during the morning and then an evening service.  They lived in one room and used the other room for a library for the men during the week.  Theirs was a ministry of being with lonely and isolated people.

 

Getting to meetings was difficult.  In 1902 when the Rev. Egbert Koonce went to General Assembly in New York, he traveled 1200 miles by dogsled, from Rampart via Eagle, Forty Mile, Dawson to Valdez, and then by steamship to Seattle and train to New York.[79]  Young describes Koonce as “an ideal frontiersman who could out-walk most of the prospectors, could go long distances on his snowshoes, sleep comfortably in his sleeping bag on the snow and retain, with all his hardships, a cheerful spirit and unfailing willingness to help.”[80]

 

By 1906 gold production reached its peak and Alaska slowly slipped back into anonymity.  “There is a saying among Alaskans that Alaska is always being discovered but it is never remembered.”[81]  Many of the stampeders left for the lower states, but some stayed, those who had learned to love the wilderness.

 

In 1915, it was decided to build a railroad into the interior to Fairbanks.  Its major reason for being built was to open up the important coal fields at Healy.  The Navy saw the need of this coal in case of war since the Panama Canal had not been completed.[82]  By 1923, the railroad was finished all the way from Seward to “the Golden Heart of Alaska’ and in the process Anchorage was born.

 

The railroad was the basis of the plan to plant farmers from the lower states into the Matanuska Valley in 1935.  The country was in the midst of a great depression, and there were social theorists who argued that in the past, “many of the U. S. depressions were relieved by mass migration to the frontier, that the present depression is uniquely acute because that safety-valve is gone.”[83]  Alaska was a frontier; the Matanuska Valley was farmable; 9,000 people lived along the Alaska railroad and that would provide a market for the crops; and the railroad could easily get them situated in the valley.

 

So, the dream became a reality, when farmers from the States were shipped north, given 40 acres of land, a house, and a barn.  The church came with them and in the town of Palmer, headquarters for the new settlement, one city block was set aside for a Lutheran, Catholic, and “Protestant” Church.  The Rev. Bert Bingle, a Presbyterian minister, was called to follow the settlers into the area, and the church of “10,000 logs” was completed.  In 1936 the United Protestant Church of Palmer was received by Yukon Presbytery and “the church and the minister were commended for their amazing accomplishments in the erection of the church building.”[84]

 

Although there were several bright spots, it was not a good time financially in the territory prior to World War II.  The minutes of the Presbytery reflect this dismal note in 1919.

 

In Alaska business affairs are at low ebb.  The demands of war have drained the country of its money, depleted the population, and practically put an end to its mining activities.  The territory has given all and received nothing.  Every community has been reduced in population.  However, the work established must be conserved and maintained in prospect of a return of prosperity and population.[85]

 

Prosperity returned for a while with President Roosevelt’s decision in 1933 to increase the price of gold from $20.67 to $33 an ounce.  The U. S. Smelting, Refining, and Mining Company came with its great dredges and giant draglines “that walked like a man” to put gold mining on a modern industrial basis.[86]

 

However, there was increasing concern that the “riches were being drained away to the States, and that the Territory was gaining little from this absentee exploitation  It was argued that Alaska’s resources should be conserved and the land’s development placed on an orderly basis.”[87]  “Even President Harding, shortly before his death, and after a visit to Alaska, said in a speech in Seattle that the ‘looting of Alaska’ should end.”[88]

 

The desire for statehood had long been a dream with the first bill being introduced in 1915 in Congress, but no action was taken.  Opposed to home rule for the Territory were the big outside companies doing business in Alaska and reaping the profit.  Since the Klondike gold rush, Seattle had become aware of the financial benefits from Alaska, and became possessive of the new found wealth, opposing measures which might hinder the lucrative relationship.[89]

 

The church was depressed as well during this period.  In 1912 the General Assembly questioned whether Yukon Presbytery should continue its existence.  It was suggested that it merge with Alaska Presbytery, but Young was opposed to such action, and it was not done.[90]

 

Matters were not helped much when S. Hall Young decided to leave Alaska and serve as secretary for Alaska of the Interdenominational Missions Council.  He was a man who knew Alaska and could get things done.

 

In Fairbanks, the annual meeting in 1921 illustrates the tenor of the times.  There was only $1.36 left in the treasury and the congregation did not want to assume any part of the pastor’s salary.  There were some bills due.  No one could be found who would accept the office of ruling elder.[91]  The church only numbered 30 members, seven more than it had when it organized in 1905.  Presbytery minutes say of the pastor who was serving the church at the time, “The Rev. and Mrs. Marple continue to serve here in spite of the depressing conditions of decline in population and prestige.”[92]

 

Although times were hard for the white churches, the Eskimo work at Barrow prospered from about 1906 through the mid 1920’s.  The Presbytery had asked the Home Missions Board not to neglect the Eskimo work in favor of the “other work.”[93]

 

Although the work at Barrow and the surrounding area was going well, the work with the Eskimo people at St. Lawrence Island was not progressing as it should.  In 1922 a report was given that “there was no missionary on St. Lawrence Island.  The Superintendent of the Bureau of Education gave assurance that if a missionary and his wife could be sent to the island that the wife, if adapted, could be appointed as a teacher in the government service. . . .”[94]

 

In 1925 the Rev. R. S. Nickerson reported to Presbytery that he had gone to St. Lawrence Island in 1923.  He found the mission building in very bad condition and only two Eskimo women had remained faithful Christians after the departure of the first missionary, Dr. E. O. Campbell.  He used these two women as a nucleus and soon had an active church of over forty members.  Eskimos had come from Siberia and asked if someone might come and teach them.  He described his job as “teaching, preaching, building, nursing, doctoring, directing in domestic lines, aiding in their store, leading the band, visiting and contributing to every phase of their life.”[95]

 

In addition to St Lawrence Island, the Presbytery was concerned about other fields for which it had responsibility: Nelson and Nunivak Islands, Cape Prince of Wales, the Bristol Bay region, mining camps at Kennicot, LaTouche, Chickaloon, Wasilla, and 400 miles along the railroad.  Dr. Young, who was serving in New York, was asked “to impress further the special obligation of the Presbyterian Church to furnish religious instruction to the above areas.”[96]  It appears from further records that only St. Lawrence Island, Cape Prince of Wales, Wasilla, and the Alaska Railroad ever received any further attention.  The depression in the lower States, and a “bust” period in Alaska, slowed the work of the church to a survival pace prior to World War II.

 

Perhaps some of the discouragement of the times came from the working conditions of the clergy.  It was not an easy life with primitive living conditions existing for most of them.  In regard to the missionaries coming to Yukon Presbytery, the Presbytery recommended that

 

They be vigorous physically, have the proper training educationally, and 

be of mature experience; that they be workers without children or whose 

children are of mature years if interior Alaska is their goal.  They should 

be approved by the general Missionary and must be acquainted with the conditions of the country.[97]

 

It was further noted that the “work in Alaska calls for men who are optimistic.  The work is hard and the people ery difficult to reach for spiritual things and the climate is severe in the winter.”[98]

 

In 1919 the ministers received three months vacation to the outside after five years of work with expenses paid to any point on the Pacific Coast.  “The committee hopes that when funds are sufficient that a longer time be given, since at least half of the time is spent in travel to and from the States.”[99]

 

In the thirties, war was looming on the horizon.  A new era in Alaska history was being shaped by events far from its shores.  War was to put Alaska on the map permanently.  

 

 

From World War II to the Building of the Alaska Pipeline

 

With the coming of World War II, the United States was jolted into the realization of the strategic location of their northwest territory when Japan invaded and held Attu and Kiska Islands at the western tip of the Aleutians.  This was the only American territory ever occupied by the Japanese and it cost the United States over 350 dead and 1,135 wounded to get it back.

 

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, there was panic in Alaska, because they believed they would be next.  Their fears were not totally unfounded.  Radio Tokyo, picked up by short wave, “boasted (falsely) that Kodiak and Dutch Harbor had been bombed to rubble, that 3,000 people had been killed in air attacks on Fairbanks, and that Anchorage and Sitka were in Japanese hands.”[100]

 

Thus the third rush to Alaska began, some 300,000 military men, who came to build defenses in an area heretofore not considered important.  When requests for defense funds had been made shortly before the war by Alaska’s voteless delegate in the U. S. Congress, one Congressman responded, “Why should anybody want Alaska?”[101]

 

There were only 80,000 Alaskans at the outbreak of the war, so to build defenses quickly, a hoard of “outsiders” was sent to do the job.

 

It was the gold rush all over again, on a fantastically enlarged scale.  This time the flood of gold came into Alaska in the form of government money needed to finance building of airports and roads.[102]

 

Of the 80,000 people in Alaska, half were Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts.  “Of the whites, over a third were sourdoughs, who came to the golden land in 1900 or earlier.  Another third came in the next decade, also for gold primarily, and the rest followed.  All three thirds were frontier folk and liked it. . . .”[103]

 

The biggest buildups were at Anchorage and Fairbanks where Elmendorf and Ladd Air Force Bases were quickly built.  From Fairbanks Lend Lease planes were picked up by Soviet pilots who flew them to Russia.  The military “changed the face of Alaska virtually overnight.”[104]

 

With the coming of the military, the problem of racism oozed to the surface once more.  Simon Buckner, who headed the Alaskan command, was a Kentuckian and the son of a Confederate general.  “He was inescapably conditioned in racial attitudes. . . .The Army was segregated; a number of Negro construction battalions served in Alaska, and Buckner segregated the service clubs to keep out the Aleut and Eskimo girls for the protection of their own virtue.”[105]

 

Muktuk Marston, the organizer of the Alaska Territorial Guard, tells of how Eskimos were allowed to sit only in the theater balcony in Nome, and when an Eskimo girl was removed from the theater for sitting with her GI boyfriend on the main floor, she filed suit.  Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening went to FDR with the problem of segregation and by mid-1943, the USO was open to all.  By 1945 the Territorial Legislature had passed a law banning discrimination in Alaska and forced “establishments to abandon their house rules of ‘No natives allowed’ and ‘No coloreds need apply’.”[106]

 

Marston saw the victory as significant for the Alaskan Native people.  “They. . . .learned that they had the right to equal treatment as U. S. citizens of the democracy they were pledged to protect.  Many white men saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that his period of easy money and domination of the native was over.”[107]  However, the Natives were quiet until oil was discovered on the North Slope.

 

The church, after the frantic effort to minister to the soldiers who came during the war, and later the Korean conflict, had some continuing vitality until about the time of Statehood and then went into a period of general decline until the Alaska pipeline was built.

 

Until 1960, the church was administered by national committees headquartered in New York.  Because Alaska still carried the mystique of the last frontier, mission money was plentiful.  

 

New churches and ministries were started without too much apparent planning and like the period of the gold rush at the turn of the century, many of the churches which were started with a burst of enthusiasm were either closed or merged.  The church continued its ministry with lonely and isolated people along the Alaska railroad and highway and did not forget the social gospel.  New institutions to meet the needs of the Alaskan society were begun.

 

Anchorage and Fairbanks grew the most during the war years and so naturally churches were started to meet the needs of the growing populations.

 

First Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks began a Sunday school ministry in Graehl and Fox, and a preaching ministry to the people living at the Six Mile area of Badger Road.  Presbytery decided to empower the National Missions Committee to “act in connection with the student center and chapel at College, Alaska.”[108]  A church camp was secured on the far side of Harding Lake.  A piece of property was purchased by Presbytery, at the request of First Presbyterian Church, in the new Westgate subdivision for the formation of a new congregation.  Hospitality House was begun.  Only the College Church was ever organized, but Harding Lake Camp and Hospitality House did survive.

 

In Anchorage, Faith Chapel was organized, and work begun in the Government Hill area.  Woodlawn Park received a new Presbyterian Church.  The Mountain View area in Anchorage asked for a building and a part-time worker, and services were started for the people in the Nunaka Valley.  Hillcrest Church was organized.  Eventually, the Government Hill and Mountain View work was abandoned and the Woodlawn Park and Faith Churches merged to form Trinity Presbyterian Church.  The Nunaka Valley Church was organized as the Immanuel Presbyterian Church.  The Jewel Lake Church was finally abandoned and later reopened in an ecumenical venture with the Methodists.  The Hillcrest Church eventually folded.

 

There were other ideas for ministry in Anchorage as well.  Ministers in the Anchorage area looked into the possibility of a hostel for Native people moving to Anchorage, and later, when no action was taken, considered a Hospitality House modeled after the Fairbanks project.  They also considered a Presbyterian College for the Greater Anchorage area.  There was a desire to get a chaplaincy program at the Alaska Native Hospital for the city.  A ministry to Native people moving into the city was under constant discussion.  The hostel was never started, nor was a Hospitality House.  The Methodists finally met the need for a college with the establishment of Alaska Methodist University.  The Presbyterian Hospital became a reality as did the chaplaincy to the Alaska Native people, but this was finally abandoned.  Hillcrest Church started a ministry to Native people and when they disbanded, First Presbyterian Church assumed the responsibility, but they failed too.  Later, an ecumenical Native ministry with the Methodists was undertaken, but it collapsed when the Native minister leading the project left for a pipeline job.  Today, Presbyterians in the Anchorage area have no ministry with the Native people in their city.  Only a handful of Natives have joined the various Presbyterian Churches, while a number of evangelical churches have successfully claimed them as members.

 

Outside the two major cities in Alaska, the work centered around the Alaska railroad ministry and the Alaska Highway ministry.  Work at Whittier was considered, and a new church was organized at Wasilla.  The Railbelt Church, headquartered at Healy, held services at Mt. McKinley and Suntrana and eventually a chapel was built at Suntrana.  On the southern end, work was initiated at Wasilla and Talkeetna.  Only the Wasilla Church survived.  All the rest were abandoned or turned over to other denominations. 

 

On the Alaska Highway, churches ranged fro Salcha to the Alaska border, but even that was stretched at times.  One summer, the Rev. Bert Bingle held a camp on Kathleen Lake near Whitehorse.  Churches were located at Tok, and Big Delta with work at Tanacross, Dot Lake, and Northway.  This scattered group of people was later organized into the Alaska Highway Presbyterian Mission.  Today, only the Big Delta Church exists.  The rest of the work was abandoned or turned over to other churches.

 

In the Matanuska Valley, the Presbyterian Church was instrumental in starting a hospital, but withdrew not too long after it was started because the Board of Directors accepted money from the Third Division Liquor Dealers who raised the funds through raffles.  In 1957 the Board of National Missions gave notice that “one year from that date official relationship will be terminated and the Presbyterian Church will no longer be associated in any way with the Valley Presbyterian Hospital, except in the holding of the Mortgage. . . .”[109]

 

The move for Alaskan Statehood, with a parallel move for independence from the National Church, was the beginning of a period of decline for the Presbyterian Church in Alaska.

 

The church strongly supported Statehood and communicated their feelings to the President and Congress of the United States. 

 

Believing that action favorable to the admission of Alaska of full status 

as a state is long overdue, and believing that the will of Alaskans has 

been expressed in favor of admission to the sisterhood of states, and 

further believing that the vast majority of Americans believe in the 

statehood as a just and righteous cause, we therefore, Presbyterians 

of the Presbytery of Yukon meeting in session in Palmer Alaska, on this 

eleventh day of April, 1958, petition the Congress of the United States 

of America to seek an immediate review of plans for our admission as a 

state and speed the day of our joining hands with the other 48 states.[110]

 

Wanting local control of government in Alaska through Statehood, churchmen also wanted local control of the church government.  Although the Presbyterians had always had an assistant administrator for Alaska located in Juneau, most of the decisions and money came from New York.  In 1959, the Council of Presbytery asked the Clerk of Alaska Presbytery to discover the feelings in Southeast about a possible Synod of Alaska.  The proposal was hardly feasible, since the churches were scattered throughout the state and were isolated and separated by thousands of miles, usually without a road connecting them.  But the plan would have meant self government for the Alaskan Churches.  It was the impracticality of the plan that led the Presbyteries to affiliate with the Synod of Washington.  This meant sending pastors and laymen thousands of miles to staff Synod committees, but the decision was made to send representatives to Synod committees just once a year and only to be represented on the major committees.  Although the idea of an Alaskan Synod failed, it did not die.  It was to reappear again in the future.

 

In 1960 the “motion was made that the National Missions work of Alaska be handled through the Synod of Washington. . . .”[111]  A General Presbyter was elected to serve Alaska and Yukon Presbyteries.

 

Once the decision was made to sever the direct administrative ties with the National Church and join the Synod of Washington, the new era in Alaskan church life was started by the Presbytery of Yukon:  Presbytery affirmed its interest in areas it was presently serving and had “no interest in other areas for the present.”[112]

 

Statistics bear out the effect of this decision, both to “hold the line” and to bring the administrative decision-makers closer to Alaska.  Apparently, less direct involvement by the National Church in Alaska meant less money for programs and personnel, and, with the new, more defensive posture of the Alaskan church, caused membership to decline.  Between 1935 and 1960 Yukon Presbytery had grown from 669 members to 3,042.  During the next 12 years, until 1972, there was a loss of 82 members.  During the same period, Alaska Presbytery had grown from 1,741 to 2,259.  By 1972 they had plunged to 1,457, a loss of 602 members in 12 years.

 

Gordon Corbett, the Associate Synod Executive for Alaska, tells of the loss of momentum.

 

It is said that in 1957, the Board of National Missions had 22 professional 

leaders available in Southeast Alaska in the Presbytery of Alaska.  At the 

Spring meeting of Alaska Presbytery in 1972, there were only five ministers serving as pastors in Presbytery.

 

This roller coaster plunge in numbers of professional leaders available for 

mission and ministry had some staggering effects on the life of the churches.  Membership was lost and demoralized.  Church schools floundered.  Only 

one young person from Alaska Presbytery came forward as a candidate for 

the ministry in fifteen years, and that only candidate was lost.  The influence 

of the church among the new Native leaders declined to next to nothing.[113]

 

The same dismal report was given to Yukon Presbytery in 1972.  The Stated Clerk reported that membership was down by 81 and then adds, “the most disconcerting evidence is the fact that we had only nine adult baptisms during the year.  It took 327 Presbyterians to win each convert.  You would think we could literally drag them into church easier than that.”[114]

 

In 1969 the Presbytery of Yukon reorganized when the Synod of Washington-Alaska decided to merge the two Presbyteries.  Feeling that Alaska was too vast to have one Presbytery for the whole State, the Presbytery of Yukon dug in its feet and adopted a new design for mission.  Certainly this had some effect on what was to happen, but so did other things, such as the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North Slope and the building of the Alaska Pipeline.  Probably for all of these reasons, 1972 was the low year and by 1976, the Presbytery gained 171 new members.  Alaska Presbytery, during the same period, gained 12 members.

 

During the years since the separation from the National Church, the Presbyterians have tried to imitate the church in the lower states by similar organizational structures and programs.  Although Alaskan Presbyterians have always held that ministry in Alaska is different than in the lower 48, it is strange that they have tried to adapt to a lower 48 organizational structure and many of the National church programs.  There is much evidence that many of these structures and programs do not work, and are in part responsible for the decline of the church in recent years.  The Board of National Missions provided the money and the freedom for the church to be innovative but with their removal from the scene, the church settled back to become like their fellow Presbyterians in the lower 48.  Only time will tell if the gains in recent years are the sign of new vitality, or just fallout from the population growth Alaska has experienced during the oil years.  And if it proves to be the latter, can the Presbyterian Church in Alaska be innovative enough to consider new structures which might better enable ministry in the vastness of the State.  Perhaps this is too much to expect or ask.

 

Although Natives compose nearly half of the Presbyterians in the State, the structure remains very paternalistic, dominated by white ministers and laymen.  This is due, in part, to the isolation of the Native churches and the lack of trained Native leaders.  But it is also probably indicative of the leftovers from “missionary days” when whites naturally assumed leadership.  By not utilizing what Native leadership is available, the Native churches continue to be fairly uninvolved in the work of the Presbytery.  Although the church has constantly decided to train Native leaders, the Presbytery has not trained them effectively at the Presbytery level.  This might be one of the reasons why Alaska Presbytery has had only one Native ministerial candidate in fifteen years and lost him.  For the most part, the Presbyterian Church in Alaska is divided between the white and Native Churches, with white Presbyterians in most of the leadership positions.  Only four churches in the whole State have any significant numbers of both white and Natives, those being First Presbyterian Church in Fairbanks, the Nome Methodist-Presbyterian Church, First Presbyterian Church in Sitka, and the Northern Lights Presbyterian Church in Juneau.  The churches in Anchorage and other urban areas of Alaska have been seemingly helpless as they have faced the in-migration of Alaskan Natives to their cities and towns.

 

Although the white part of the Presbyterian Church has been unsuccessful in training and utilizing Native leadership at the judicatory level of the church and in bringing Native Presbyterians into white churches in the cities and towns, the church has an admirable stand in supporting the self-development of the Native people of Alaska.  They have made pronouncements, and even more importantly, taken action which, in several instances, has been very helpful.

 

As the Native people became more aware of their situation after the war, Percy Ipalook, an Eskimo Presbyterian pastor at Wales, was one of the first Natives to be elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1948.

 

It was the discovery of oil on the North Slope, however, that really awakened the Alaskan Natives to their plight.  They had no deed to the lands where they had lived for thousands of years and it looked like their lands might be overrun by another rush of those looking for wealth, this time to be found in oil.

 

In 1969, the Presbytery of Yukon passed the following resolution:

 

Be it resolved that the Presbytery urge its members to become 

informed concerning the problems of Native Land Claims, that 

we urge our constituents to seek an early settlement of these claims.  

We would call attention to our non-native constituents of the 

organization S. O. S. (Supporters of Settlement), and recommend 

supporting this group.  We recommend that churches on the North 

Slope and St. Lawrence Island study the Land Claims issue so that 

they can become informed, active citizens.[115]

 

In November of the same year Presbytery asked its Mission, Strategy, and Evangelism Committee to seek “Fund for Freedom” monies for the Alaska Federation of Natives and that “it support seeking the denomination’s co-signing of a loan to the Alaska Federation of Natives. . . .”[116]

 

Action was taken quickly.  Two weeks later Presbytery “requested the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. be co-signers of a loan to the AFN for publicity.”[117]  The National Church did not become involved at this point.  It did, however, grant $95,000 to the Arctic Slope Native Association to help fight for the passage of the Native Land Claims Bill in the U. S. Congress.

 

In 1971, the Eskimo people on St. Lawrence Island were concerned about the testing of a hydrogen bomb on Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Chain.  The Aleutians are known for their frequent earthquakes and in the 8.4 earthquake in 1964 which devastated Anchorage and other parts of the State, St. Lawrence Island had been hit with giant tidal waves.  The Eskimos were fearful that the blast would trigger an earthquake and cause more suffering to the island.  Presbytery responded by sending telegrams “to Senators Stevens and Gravel and Representative Begich and to Governor Egan asking for their help in canceling the Amchitka Blast and that the Presbytery express their special concern for the safety of the people on St. Lawrence Island.”[118]  Although the bomb was detonated without causing an earthquake, Presbytery did speak to the issue.

 

In 1971, Presbytery accepted the recommendation of the Arctic Area Council

 

That Presbytery write letters to Senators Stevens and Gravel, to 

Representative Begich, and to the Chairman of the Committee for 

Senate hearings for the bill which forbids all killing of sea mammals 

for a certain number of years, urging them to amend this bill to permit 

subsistence hunting by the native people who have traditionally used these animals for food supply and other necessities.[119]

 

1971 was “Angela Davis” year in the United Presbyterian Church.  In Alaska, the most violent protest of the Church’s decision to aid in her defense came from First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage.  They temporarily decided to withhold mission funds, and let their opposition be known to the media.

 

The Anchorage church, by this time, had a significant number of “oil men” in their congregation and 1971 was the year the Native Land Claims was being debated hotly in Alaska and the halls of Congress.  With Presbytery’s bent to make social pronouncements, especially in favor of the Native people, First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage introduced this resolution in Presbytery which was passed.

 

That any matter brought before the Presbytery of Yukon dealing with 

matters of a political or scientific nature shall be presented to Presbytery 

during the first day of the meeting.  Upon presentation of such a matter, 

the Moderator shall appoint a special committee of investigation which 

shall be charged with the responsibility of seeking all pertinent facts and information on all sides of the issue.  The matter shall then be brought 

back to the Presbytery by the special committee with its definite 

affirmative or negative recommendation based on its study and findings.[120]

 

However, this seemed to have little impact.  In 1973 the Presbytery voted to concur with the Advisory Council on Church and Race of the General Assembly which met in San Francisco on February 24, 1973, that

 

the Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian 

Church in the United States of America immediately respond to the 

request of the Church and Society Committee of the Synod of 

Alaska-Northwest and the Utkeagvik Presbyterian Church in Barrow, 

Alaska, and cause a minimum of $150,000 of the invested funds of 

national boards, agencies, and instrumentalities of the General 

Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of 

America to be reinvested in revenue anticipation notes of the new 

North Slope Borough government which was created, in part, with 

the assistance of the National Committee of the Self Development 

of People in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of 

America.[121]

 

The loan was granted by the National Church and helped the fledgling North Slope Borough withstand the attempt at economic starvation by the oil companies operating at Prudhoe Bay.

 

The following year, the Presbytery supported the “Molly Hootch” case brought by a young Native girl in an isolated Alaskan village, asking the courts to decide that she was entitled to an education in her village rather than to be shipped to a high school far from her home and culture.  She won the case and the victory mandated high schools in most Alaskan villages.

 

As Alaska grew rapidly during and after the war and through the oil boom, the Church was faced with new denominations.  Prior to the war, the comity agreement existed and denominations were not in any competitive situations, but were assigned areas of responsibility.

 

Beginning with the war, new denominations discovered Alaska and began their work in the villages and cities.

 

It was in the villages where they created the most havoc.  The cities were better places for new churches to get started without having an adverse affect on the unity of the population.

 

Gambell, on St. Lawrence Island, was having trouble as early as 1947 with the Seventh Day Adventists, who had started a church in their community.  In the 1950’s the Assembly of God Church entered the Presbyterian villages of Barrow, Wainwright, and Barter Island, and had an immediate divisive effect on the population.  For people who had been used to one church for years, to have another church arrive and claim to have the “real truth,” was difficult for the Native people to comprehend.  Of course, converts were made by the new churches, and thus families and communities became divided over religion.

 

In 1949, when the Northern Baptists wished to enter the larger cities of Alaska, the suggestion was made by Dr. Earle Jackman, who was the administrator for the Board of National Missions in Alaska, “that while local Presbyterian ministers would cooperate with them, it would be in many cases, duplication of work.”[122]

 

The United Presbyterian Church was, however, very open in its response to some of the churches.  When the American Baptists wanted to operate a hospital in Cordova if they could have a church that would work with the hospital, the Presbyterians turned over their church in Cordova to them, with the only stipulation being that “if the Baptists withdraw from the field, the field reverts back to the Presbytery of Yukon.”[123]  The Mission Covenant Church was working in Yakutat, in Southeast, and the Presbyterians were working with the Eskimo people at Cape Prince of Wales, and since the Presbyterians were stronger in Southeast Alaska, and the Mission Covenant Church in western Alaska, these fields were traded.

 

In Interior Alaska, the Presbyterians and Episcopalians were cooperating in ministry at Harding Lake Camp, Tok, Northway, Tanacross, Valdez, and Healy.  Statewide, the Alaska Council of Churches was formed and the Rev. Carl Nelson of the University Church in Fairbanks spoke to Presbytery about “discussions in the Fairbanks area among various churches about the hope of one ecumenical church on the local level.”[124]

 

The Methodists and Presbyterians first started cooperating in the Kenai area in 1969 where an ecumenical church was established, with Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Salvation Army cooperating.

 

In 1970, Presbytery adopted a policy concerning ecumenical mission that

 

in areas where there is a church in a non-competing situation, that 

church will be recognized by the Presbytery as serving the Presbyterians 

in that community; and where there is a Presbyterian church in a 

non-competing situation, that Presbyterian church will be encouraged 

and permitted to represent the other denominations upon approval by 

Presbytery on Session request.[125]

 

The first church where the Presbyterians and Methodists cooperated in one building was the Jewel Lake Parish in Anchorage.  After the Presbyterians had built a church in the area and failed to make it into an active congregation, the Methodists and Presbyterians formed a new congregation.  This church, a part of Tri-Anchor Parish composed of the Jewel Lake Church, Trinity Presbyterian Church, and Turnagain Methodist Church, soon submitted a proposal to the Presbytery of Yukon and the Methodist Missionary Conference for merger of the two denominations.  It read:

 

Whereas, the following judicatories – the Alaska Methodist Mission, 

the Presbytery of Alaska, the Presbytery of Yukon – are all minimal 

in size hence making it difficult to plan and administer the church’s 

mission in Alaska; and

 

Whereas, a large amount of duplication of the denominations tends to compromise the mission we are individually trying to perform; and

 

Whereas, the mission of God overrides the differences of man, a single 

minded Christian unit would better serve him with greater dedication;

 

THEREFORE

 

We, the undersigned, urge that a committee of eight (four from the 

Alaska Mission and two from each of the Presbyteries in Alaska or four 

from a single Presbytery if such a merger is affected) be established to 

study and propose a plan which would unite the United Methodist Church 

and the United Presbyterian Church in the USA to form a single judicatory 

for Alaska. . . .[126]

 

Although the proposal was accepted, it ultimately failed because there was little “grass roots” support for it from either denomination.  But time continued to move forward and when the Methodist Church in Juneau was condemned by the State, the Methodists asked if they could worship in the Presbyterian’s building.  Later they began worshiping together and finally merged.  In Nome, Eskimos from St. Lawrence Island were pushing for the organization of a new Presbyterian Church.  The Presbyterians balked at establishing a new church in an already over-churched Alaskan town, but proceeded to organize the church, using the Methodist building with the Methodist pastor acting as pastor of the Presbyterian Eskimos.  In Fairbanks in 1976, both the Presbyterians and Methodists discovered they were interested in establishing a new church in the North Pole area, so they joined their efforts to start a new Methodist Presbyterian Church under the leadership of a Presbyterian minister.  The Rev. A. C. Wischmeier, the Methodist District Superintendent, has said he believes the cooperative churches are the forerunners of eventual union of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches in Alaska.  If this does occur, it will be interesting what this will do to the Presbyterian Natives who comprise half of the Presbyterians in the State.  The Methodists have almost no Native persons in their church and it would make the Natives a minority in the united church.

 

Conclusion

 

Presbyterian whites have been in Alaska 100 years.  Their record presents a paradox.  The first Presbyterian missionaries came to Christianize and civilize the Natives, but after 100 years that goal has not been reached.  The Natives have accepted Christianity but have balked at being re-culturized, which in effect is civilizing.  The Presbyterian Church has been a friend of the Native people, and has always helped them against the dehumanizing elements of white culture and aided them against those who wanted their wealth and lands.  Yet, the white Presbyterians have had a difficult time accepting the Native people into their churches and allowing them to be leaders.  After one hundred years, there are only two active Presbyterian Native pastors in the state and one preparing for the ministry and they are all Eskimos.  Whites pastor all but three of the 17 Native Churches in the State.  Native persons are present at the meetings of high judicatories and sit on committees, but are not in significant positions of leadership at Presbytery or Synod level.  It is interesting to note that Alaskan Native Presbyterians have probably given more leadership at the National Church level than at the Presbytery or Synod level.

 

In the urban areas, the Natives attend “sect” churches almost exclusively because they do not feel welcomed or accepted in the white Presbyterian churches, and the white churches continue to be unwilling to risk the change it would take to reach them.  Thus it appears most white Presbyterians want to maintain their separateness.  Although the whites “have done a lot” for the Native Christians throughout the years, they apparently want to stay in the “giving” position.  If this is true, then there is little difference in Native-white relationships since the early days of the white Presbyterian missionary.  Native Presbyterians remain loyal to the Presbyterian Church but time will tell if they will demand more than passive participation in denominational leadership and if the whites will accept more than minimal leadership from them.

 

Another problem is that many of the whites, who have exploited the Natives, have been and still are members of Presbyterian Churches and this is an issue many white Presbyterians have never faced.  It seems to be one thing to make pronouncements and decisions about the self-determination of Native people in their villages, but quite another when it comes to changing to the extent that Natives will feel welcome and wanted in the white urban churches of Alaska.

 

Thus, the record of the whites is mixed.  The future will be better and brighter only when white Presbyterians permit Alaskan Natives full participation in the whole church.  Until then, there is a chasm, across which there remain only a few precarious bridges.

 

 

 

END NOTES

 

---

[1] Ernest Gruening, Ed., An Alaskan Reader, (New York: Meridity Press), 1966, p. 3.

[2] Ibid., pp. 1-2.

[3] Bryan Cooper, Alaska, The Last Frontier, (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc.), 1973, p. 41.

[4] Ibid., p. 45.

[5] Ibid., p. 41.

[6] Ibid., pp. 40-41.

[7] Hector Chevigny, Lord of Alaska, (New York: The Viking Press), 1943, p. 118.

[8] Ibid., p. 18.

[9] Cooper, Alaska, The Last Frontier, p. 45.

[10] C. L. Andrews, The Story of Alaska, (Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Co.), 1931, p. 39.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Gruening, An Alaskan Reader, p. 19.

[13] F. A. Golder, Father Herman, Alaska’s Saint, (San Francisco: Orthodox Christian Books and Icons), 1968, p. 14.

[14] Chevigny, Lord of Alaska, p. 114.

[15] Ibid., pp. 114-115.

[16] Ibid., p. 50.

[17] Ibid., p. 124.

[18] Bolder, Father Herman, Alaska’s Saint, p. 15.

[19] Ibid., pp. 16-17.

[20] Sheldon Jackson, Alaska and Missions of the North Pacific Coast, (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company), 1880, p. 127.

[21] Hudson Struck, The Alaska Missions of the Episcopal Church, (Seattle: Facsimile Reproduction), 1968, p. 2.

[22] Ernest Gruening, The State of Alaska, (New York: Random House), 1968, p. 20.

[23] William R. Hunt, Alaska, A Bicentennial History,  (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.), 1976, p. 30.

[24] Ted C. Hinckley, The Americanization of Alaska, 1967-1897, (Palo Alto: Pacific Books Publishers), 1972, p. 100.

[25] Andrews, The Story of Alaska, p. 118.

[26] S. Hall Young, Hall Young of Alaska, (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company), 1927, p. 288.

[27] Andrews, The Story of Alaska, p. 119.

[28] Ibid., p. 138.

[29] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, pp. 95-96.

[30] Andrews, The Story of Alaska, p. 138.

[31] Ibid., p. 125.

[32] Hinckley, The Americanization of Alaska, 1867-1897, p. 159.

[33] Jackson, Alaska and Missions on the North Pacific Coast, p. 182.

[34] Ibid., p. 129.

[35] Ibid., pp. 130-131.

[36] J. Arthur Lazell, Alaskan Apostle, (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers) 1960, p. 65.

[37] Ibid., p. 69.

[38] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, pp. 272-273.

[39] Ibid., pp. 274-275.

[40] Ibid., p. 275.

[41] Hinckley, The Americanization of Alaska, 1876-1897, pp. 162-163.

[42] Ibid., p. 160.

[43] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 285.

[44] Lazell, Alaskan Apostle, p. 71.

[45] Ibid., p. 76.

[46] Ibid., pp. 92-93.

[47] Ibid., p. 78.

[48] Ernest Gruening, The State of Alaska, (New York: Random House), 1968, pp. 358-359.

[49] Norman A. Chance, “Directed Change and Northern Peoples,” Change in Alaska, George W. Rogers, Ed., (College: University of Alaska Press), 1970, p. 185.

[50] Lazell, Alaskan Apostle, pp. 200-201.

[51] Hinckley, The Americanization of Alaska, 1867-1897, p. 230.

[52] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 289.

[53] Lazell, Alaskan Apostle, p. 64.

[54] Ibid., p. 88.

[55] Ibid., p. 190.

[56] Ibid., pp. 74-75.

[57] Ibid., p. 74.

[58] Struck, The Alaska Missions of the Episcopal Church, pp. 11-12.

[59] Cooper, Alaska, The Last Frontier, p. 57.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 310.

[62] 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. 4. 

[63] Cooper, Alaska, The Last Frontier, p. 61.

[64] Young, Hall Yung of Alaska, p. 312.

[65] Ibid., p. 330.

[66] Ibid., p. 318.

[67] Ibid., p. 394.

[68] Lazell, Alaskan Apostle, p. 183.

[69] Ibid., p. 154.

[70] Ibid., p. 181.

[71] Hon. James Wickersham, Old Yukon, , 1938, p. 123.

[72] Hinckley, The Americanization of Alaska, 1867-1897, pp. 216-217.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Andrews, The Story of Alaska, p. 147.

[75] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 383.

[76] Bingle, Presbytery of Yukon, 1899-1929, p. 4.

[77] Ibid., p. 6.

[78] James Wollaston Kirk, Pioneer Life in the Yukon Valley Alaska, (Buffalo: Ben Franklin Printers, Inc.), 1935, p. 10.

[79] Bingle, Presbytery of Yukon, 1899-1929, p. 9.

[80] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 402.

[81] Cooper, Alaska, The Last Frontier, p. 23.

[82] Ibid., p. 64.

[83] Hunter, Alaska, A Bicentennial History, p. 94.

[84] Mable P. Bingle, Compiler, History of the Presbytery of Yukon, 1929-1950, (From the Minutes of Yukon Presbytery), p. 10.

[85] Bingle, Presbytery of Yukon, 1899-1929, p. 19.

[86] William Gilman, Our Hidden Front, (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc.), 1944, p. 12.

[87] Ibid.

[88] Cooper, Alaska, The Last Frontier, p. 65.

[89] Hunt, Alaska, A Bicentennial History, p. 92.

[90] Young, Hall Young of Alaska, p. 421.

[91] Minutes of First Presbyterian Church, Fairbanks, Alaska, 1904-1936, p. 82.

[92] Bingle, Presbytery of Yukon, 1899-1929, p. 19.

[93] Ibid., p. 32.

[94] Ibid., p. 25.

[95] Ibid., p. 28.

[96] Ibid., p. 24.

[97] Ibid., p. 22.

[98] Ibid., p. 25.

[99] Ibid., p. 20.

[100] Brian Garfield, The Thousand Mile War, (New York: Ballantine Books), 1969.

[101] Ibid., p. 52.

[102] Gilman, Our Hidden Front, p. 9. 

[103] Ibid., p. 10.

[104] Garfield, The Thousand Mile War, p. 59.

[105] Ibid.

[106] Ibid.

[107] Muktuk Marston, Men of the Tundra, (New York: October House, Inc.), 1969, p. 139.

[108] Mable P. Bingle, compiler, History of the Presbytery of Yukon, 1929-1950, (From the Minutes of Yukon Presbytery), p. 44.

[109] Minutes of Yukon Presbytery, Meeting of March 20, 1957.

[110] Ibid., Minutes of April 11, 1958.

[111] Ibid., Minutes of November 8, 1960.

[112] Ibid.

[113] Gordon L. Corbett, Paper entitled, “The United Presbyterian Church at Work in Alaska in 1977.”

[114] Minutes of Yukon Presbytery, Meeting of March 11, 1972.

[115] Ibid., Meeting of March 15, 1969.

[116] Ibid., Meeting of November 8, 1969.

[117] Ibid., Meeting of November 22, 1969.

[118] Ibid., Meeting of September 17, 1971.

[119] Ibid., Meeting of March 10, 1972.

[120] Ibid., Meeting of March 11, 1972.

[121] Ibid., Meeting of March 18, 1973.

[122] Ibid., Meeting of March 28, 1949.

[123] Ibid., Meeting of January 11, 1950.

[124] Ibid., Meeting of June 10, 1967.

[125] Ibid., Meeting of March 13, 1970.

[126] Ibid., Meeting of March 10, 1973.