While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Alaska.—Alaska was discovered
by the Russians in 1741 and remained a possession of Russia until
transferred to the United States in 1867. In 1794 regular missionary work
was begun among the Aleut on Kodiak Island by monks of the Greek
Catholic (Russian orthodox) church, under the Archimandrite Joassaf,
with marked success among the islanders, lint with smaller result among
the more warlike tribes of the mainland. Within a few years the savage A
lent were transformed to civilized Christians, many of whom were able to
read, write, and speak the Russian language. Among the pioneer workers
were Fathers Juvenal, murdered in 1796 by the Eskimo for his opposition to
polygamy, and the distinguished John Veniaminof, 1823 to about 1840, the
historian and philologist of the Alaskan tribes, and author of a number of
religious and educational works in the Aleut and Tlingit languages,
including an Aleut grammar and a brief dictionary. Fathers Jacob
Netzvietoff and Elias Tishnoff also have made several translations into
the Aleut language. About the time of the transfer to the United States
the Christian natives numbered 12,000, served by 27 priests and deacons,
with several schools, including a seminary at Sitka.Chapels had been
established in every important settlement from Prince William Island to
the outermost of the Aleutian Islands, a distance of 1,800 miles, besides
other stations on the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Nushagak Rivers, and regular
churches at Sitka, Killisnoo, and Juneau. In 1902 the Greek church had 18
ministers at work in Alaska.
The first, Protestant missions after the transfer to t
he United States were begun by the Presbyterian in 1877, under the
supervision of Rev. Sheldon Jackson and Mrs A. R. McFarland, with
headquarters at Ft Wrangell, where a school had already been organized by
some Christian Indians from the Methodist station at Ft Simpson, British
Columbia. Within the next 18 years some 15 stations had been established
among the Indians of the south coast and islands, besides two among the
Eskimo, at Point Barrow and on St Lawrence Island. Among the earliest
workers, besides those already named, were Rev. J. G. Brady, Rev. E. S.
Willard, and Mr. Walter Stiles. The principal schools were at Sitka (1878)
and Juneau (1886). At Pt Barrow a herd of imported reindeer added to the
means of subsistence. The majority of these missions are still in
successful operation.
The next upon the ground were the Catholics, who
made their first establishment at Wrangell in 1878, following with others
at Sitka, Juneau, and Skagway. In 1886–87 they entered the Yukon region,
with missions at Nulato on the Yukon, St Ignatius on the Kuskokwim, St
Mary's (Akularak), St Michael, Nome, Kusilvak Island, Nelson Island, Holy
Cross (Koserefsky), and others, the largest schools being those at
Koserefsky and Nulato. With the exception of Nulato all were in Eskimo
territory. In 1903 the work was in charge of 12 Jesuits and lay brothers,
assisted by 11 sisters of St Anne. The Innuit grammar and dictionary of
Father Francis Barnum (1901) ranks as one of the most important
contributions to Eskimo philology.
In 1884 the Moravian pioneer workers among the
eastern Eskimo, sent a commission to look over the ground in Alaska, and
as a result a mission was established at Kevinak among the Eskimo of
Kuskokwim River in the next year by Revs. W. H. Weinland and J. H. Kilbuck,
with their wives. In the same year other stations were established at
Kolmakof, on the upper Kuskokwim, for Eskimo and Indians together, and
farther south, at Carmel, on Nushagak River. In 1903 there were 5 mission
stations in Eskimo territory, in charge of 13 white workers, having 21
native assistants, with Rev. Adolf Stecker as superintendent. The reindeer
herd numbered nearly 400.
In 1886 the Episcopalians began work with a
school at St Michael, on the coast ( Eskimo), which was removed next year
to Anvik, on the Yukon, in charge of Rev. and Mrs Octavins Parker and Rev.
J. H. Chapman. In 1890 a mission school was started at Point Hope
(Eskimo), under Dr J. B. Driggs, and about the same time another among the
Tanana Indians in the middle Yukon valley, by Rev. and Mrs T. H. Canham.
In 1903 the Episcopalians in Alaska, white and native, counted 13
churches, a boarding school, and 7 day schools, with a total working force
of 31.
The Baptists also began work in 1886 on Kodiak
Island, under Mr. W. E. Roscoe. In 1893 a large orphanage was erected on
Wood Island, opposite Kodiak, by the Woman's Home Mission Society, its
sphere of influence now including a great part of the Alaska peninsula
westward from Mt St Elias.
The Methodists, beginning also in 1886, have now
several stations in south east Alaska, together with the flourishing Jesse
Lee Industrial Home, under the auspices of the Methodist Woman's Home
Mission Society, on Unalaska Island.
In 1887 the Swedish Evangelical Union of Sweden,
through Revs. Axel Karlson and Adolf Lydell, respectively, established
stations at Unalaklik on Bering sea (Eskimo) and at Yakutat, on the south
coast among the Tlingit. In 1900, in consequence of an epidemic, an
orphanage was founded on Golofnin bay. The civilizing and Christianizing
influence of the Swedish mission is manifest over a large area.
In 1887 the Kansas Yearly Meeting of Friends began work
on Douglas Island, near Juneau, through Messrs E. W. Weesner and W. H.
Bangham, chiefly for the white population. In 1892 a school was opened
among the Kake Indians of Kuiu and Kupreanof Island, under the auspices of
the Oregon meeting, and in 1897 another mission, under the auspices of the
California meeting, was established among the Eskimo in Kotzebue Sound.
Here also is now a large reindeer herd.
In 1890 the Congregationalists, under auspices of the
American Missionary Association, established the Eskimo mission school of
Wales, at C. Prince of Wales, on Bering Straight, under Messrs W. T. Lopp
and H. R. Thornton, the latter of whom was afterward assassinated by some
rebellious pupils. In 1902 the school war in prosperous condition, with
more than a hundred pupils and a herd of about 1,200 reindeer.
In 1900 the Lutherans, under the auspices of the
Norwegian Evangelical Church, established an orphanage at the Teller
reindeer station, Port Clarence, Bering Streight, under Rev. T. L. Brevig,
assisted by Mr. A. Hovick, the missionaries having charge also of the
Government reindeer herds at the place. It was at Teller station that Rev.
Sheldon Jackson, in 1892, inaugurated the experiment of introducing
Siberia reindeer to supplement the rapidly diminishing food supply of the
natives, as the whale had been practically exterminated from the Alaska
coast. The experiment has proved a complete success, the original imported
herd of 53 animals having increased to more than 15,000, with promise of
solving the problem of subsistence for the Eskimo as effectually as was
done by the sheep introduced by the old Franciscans among the Pueblos and
through them the Navaho.
