Alaska -- Description and travel; Frontier and pioneer life -- Alaska
While in the sitting room after supper three gentlemen and the wife of
one of them called to spend the evening from the A. E. Company's
establishment. One was the manager and head of the company's store here,
another was his clerk, and the man and his wife were neighbors.
We soon found out that the young clerk had been up the Koyuk River
prospecting, and wanted to go again. The boys want to go there
themselves, and we gathered considerable information from our callers
regarding the country, manner of getting there, the best route, etc.,
and spent a pleasant evening, as they seemed also to do.
Sunday, November fourth, was marked as the first time of holding church
service in the schoolhouse since our arrival, and a good number were
present. Twenty-two Eskimos and ten white people made a cozy little
audience for Mr. H. and his interpreter, Ivan. I played the organ, and
they all sang from Gospel songs. For some reason a lump would come up in
my throat when I played the old home songs that I had so many times
played under widely differing circumstances, thousands of miles away;
but under the current of sadness there was one also of thanksgiving for
protection and guidance all the way.
It was a motley crowd listening to the preacher that day, from various
and widely separated countries, Sweden, Norway, Finland, United States,
Alaska and possibly some others, were represented at this service as
well as at the one of the evening held in the Mission House which needed
no extra lights nor warming. A few more natives came in at this time,
and Mollie, the captain's wife, was there with her mother. Again I
played the instrument, while the rest sang. The little sitting-room and
hall were crowded, seats having been brought in from the kitchen, and
some were standing at the doors. One old Eskimo woman seemed in deep
trouble, for she wiped her eyes a great deal, and she, with some others,
were very dirty, at least if odors tell stories without lying.
Monday, November fifth: This has been a fine day, and brought with it a
new lot of experiences. I took a few kodak views of a dog-team and
fur-dressed people in front of the Mission. After supper four neighbors
came (the same who called on us the other evening) with their horse to
take us out for a moonlight ride, and it proved a very novel one. A big,
grey horse, with long legs supporting his great hulk, and carrying him
away up above us as we sat on the sled; the conveyance, a home-made
"bob" sled upon which had been placed rough boards piled with hay and
fur robes for the comfort of passengers, and the harness home-made like
the "rig," was ingeniously constructed of odds and ends of old rope of
different colors which the men assured us, when interrogated upon the
point, were perfectly strong and secure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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