. Alaska and the Klondike. ty of their community, they left oldMetlakahtla, where they had built houses and a church INDIANS OF ALASKA 291 and had established several simple industries. They tookwith them only their personal belongings and set out intheir canoes to commence all over again—and yet notwhere they started underFather Duncans guid-ance, for they couki notbe robbed of their religionor the advancement theyhad made in civilisation. It is a pathetic storywhich recounts the sacri-fices they made for theirreligious and communal lib-erty. The Pilgrim fathersin their migration to anew worl
. Alaska and the Klondike. ty of their community, they left oldMetlakahtla, where they had built houses and a church INDIANS OF ALASKA 291 and had established several simple industries. They tookwith them only their personal belongings and set out intheir canoes to commence all over again—and yet notwhere they started underFather Duncans guid-ance, for they couki notbe robbed of their religionor the advancement theyhad made in civilisation. It is a pathetic storywhich recounts the sacri-fices they made for theirreligious and communal lib-erty. The Pilgrim fathersin their migration to anew world for consciencesake were scarcely moreheroic in spirit than thesepilgrims of work of thirty yearsof toilsome and patientstruggle up the long andweary pathway which theyhad climbed from a stateof savagery to the condi-tion of an orderly, law-abiding, and self-governing Christian community—allthey had achieved as represented in a neat and w , which compclkHJ the admiration of tra\ellers. Father Duncan 292 ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE from Europe and America—was left behind to begin againin the wilderness. This migration took place in 1887, and no people havebeen more deeply interested and none so vitally concernedin the result of the controversy over the Alaskan bound-ary, which might have left them in British territory andraised again the question of their title to their homes,and their church and schools and factories. Father Duncans theory of elevation of the Indian wasnot to teach him religion alone, but to instruct him incrafts and occupations which should make him a self-sup-porting and self-respecting man. This was undertakenlong before the migration of 1887. In 1870 FatherDuncan went back to England to acquire a knowledge ofseveral simple trades that he might instruct his people,and to purchase such tools and machinery as his well-con-ceived plans required. At Yarmouth he learned rope-making and twine-spinning, at another place blacksmi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidalaskak, booksubjectalaska
