Among the Tlingits: The Letters of 1881-1883 - Softcover

Willard, Carrie M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0945519206 ISBN 13: 9780945519201

Publisher: Mountain Meadow Pr, 1995

Synopsis

Young Carrie Willard and her Presbyterian missionary husband arrived in Southeast Alaska in June of 1881. After passing through Fort Wrangell and spending time in Sitka, the couple establised their mission in crude quarters in the community they named Haines. There, among a subgroup of the Tlingit Indians known as the Chilkats, the Willards began their work. An adventurous spirit and religious zeal carried Carrie through continual challenges and hardships--the raising of two toddlers in the wilds, life-threatening illnesses and lack of food, isolation from her own kin and culture, and the weaving and maintenance of a delicate interface between her family and the people she struggled both to understand and to change.

Her story, told through letters she wrote to her parents, friends, and supporters, is an extraordinary tale of one woman's life in the Alaska wilderness of the 1880s.

Includes 30 sketches by Carrie Willard.

About this title

About the Author:

Caroline McCoy White was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1853. Early in life "Carrie" became fascinated with the lives of Christian missionaries about whom she heard and read. As a young adult she studied art at academies in Cincinnati, New York City and Pittsburgh. She became Mrs. Eugene Willard on April 24, 1879 and in the early summer of 1881 she and her husband arrived in Southeast Alaska. From there Carrie penned the letters that comprise this book between June, 1881 and November 1883.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Sitka, Alaska

July 8 [1881]

Chilkat is some two hundred and twenty-five miles north of this place [Sitka], through Chatham Straits. The steamer leaves in forty-eight hours, and we go with her as far as the mines. Dr. Sheldon Jackson is aboard, with carpenters and lumber for the building of the mission house, which we hope to occupy before long...

Chilkat Mission Manse
Haines, Alaska
August 23, 1881

My Dear Friends: In the beginning, a word to friends old and young who had part or parcel in the sending of the singing books which arrived last evening by the man-of-war Wachusette. How we do thank you all for your prompt kindness! We feel so strong--that is, your ready action in this matter has made us feel that we have your interest, your love and your prayers. And, as we said to each other when we opened the books last night, "Oh, how good it will seem to sing from books that our home friends have sent!" It seems good even to have them in the house.

And now where shall I begin to tell you of all you wish to know of our work? You know we expected to live in a tent till we could put up for ourselves a log house. Well, we should have done so had it not been for Dr. Sheldon Jackson's wise and unselfish zeal. Instead of waiting until someone proffered the means, he had faith in the loving interest of the Church at large to redeem the pledge he might make and borrowed money on his own responsibility to erect buildings for the mission both here and at Hoonah. Then, as the mere mechanical part of building was no simple problem so far from supplies, he brought his own experience to bear upon it, and with his carpenters worked with his own hands on our pretty home here. He also brought us a bell--the gift of Mrs. C.H. Langdon of Elizabeth, New Jersey--which is the first Presbyterian bell in Alaska; and oh how sweet it sounds. Just a Presbyterian tone! I can never express the feelings it aroused when I heard the waves of its solemn music in the solitude of Alaska. It is such a help to us! Twice every Sabbath it brings the Natives together to hear the good news, and on every weekday to a school. Dr. Jackson expects, on his return to the States, to solicit funds to pay for our building.

And now as to our field and work here. I shall give you an idea of it. You have heard of the British mission under the care of Father Duncan, who has built the model Christian Indian village of Metlakatlah in British Columbia. It is with something of the same plan in mind that we have located our mission on Portage Bay, where there is no permanent Indian house. We have named our mission after the secretary of the Woman's Executive Committee of Home Missions, "Haines."

In our Chilkat country there are four villages--three on Chilkat River and one on the Chilkoot River. Each of these villages has its chief or chiefs and medicine men, each its distinct nobility, and each its own interests and jealousies of all the others. So, you see, had we built at any one of these places, we would in some measure come into antagonism with the others. We would, in their eyes, be allying ourselves with that particular people, and the others would be too proud to come under their hand. As it is, Portage Bay is a beautiful and safe harbor almost at the head of Chilkoot Inlet, the eastern arm of Lynn Canal. The point of land here between the Chilkat River and Lynn Canal is the largest level tract and the most fertile that we have seen anywhere in Alaska, and will afford ample farming ground for the people. They all regard it as our place and so speak of it and have promised in all the villages to come to "the minister's place" and build new houses where they can learn. They have visited us, and one and all have expressed their joy at our arrival and their own intention to come and build here as soon as the winter stores of fish and berries are secured.

Besides our own house here, there are buildings put up by the trading company, one occupied by them as a trading post, the other purchased by the Mission Board for school purposes. The school is sixteen by thirty feet, of rough and knotty up-and-down boards, without chimneys, with four small windows which cannot be opened, and one small door. The door is so frail that I fear it will scarcely stand a good winter storm, for it shakes with walking down the steps. The rafters above have been covered with whitewashed cheesecloth, which flaps up and down like a sail every time the door is opened. There are so many holes in the shingles that on a sunshiny day this whited canopy presents the appearance of the starry heavens, so flecked with sunlight. It will perhaps do for a year or two...

...We opened the school on Monday, the 8th of August, after Dr. Jackson left, with twenty-four pupils. Some days since we have had twenty-eight, but only four regular ones. The others came in as they crossed the trail. There are a few bark shelters, where they stop when they come to trade. But on every Sabbath canoe-loads come from the villages, and we have always had from forty-five to fifty in attendance. Monday five other canoes came in for church. Their having missed a day, we taught them in our home...

...But my letter is already too long, although I have not told you half that I wished. I must say "farewell" with the prayer that your small society may continue to grow in interest and influence...

About this edition

• Publisher: Mountain Meadow Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0945519206
• ISBN 13: 9780945519201
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1