well-adjusted and skilled whites. Unem p loym en t among Eskimos is highest in the nation. Living stand ards are lowest. Average income is less than 20% that of white workers. Parents perceive that modern education lessens their young people's ability to perpetuate their tradi tional pursuits and disrupts time-honored close fami ly ties. To illustrate: Compulsory education laws pre vent Eskimo boys from accompanying their fathers on winter trapping expeditions. Thus the men are isolated from their families; boys are not learning this native vocation, and family incomes are reduced. Eskimos who have conformed are working suc cessfully in the fields of mechanics, electronics, weld ing, radar, sanitation, defense, arts and crafts. The resolute become lawyers, educators, merchants, avia tors and congressmen. But those who are unwilling or unable to adjust to our clock-and-calendar economy rely principally upon welfare and unemployment bene fits. They unload ships, hunt, fish and trap in season. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Public Health Service are providing schools, free lunches, boarding dormitories, vocational training, adult education, hos pitals, clinics, traveling doctors and nurses. Some small low-cost houses are being built. Water systems and electricity are being installed in a few of the small villages. There is a crying need for sewers, roads, more medical care, and training in sanitation and home making. In the past, costs for the government to meet the needs have been prohibitive. But the recent oil bon anza has made Alaska the richest state in the Union. A gigantic pipeline is being planned to transport oil from the Arctic coast to the Gulf of Alaska, 800 miles across the state. Already millions of acres of wilder ness have ben destroyed. Several-native villages in the pathway have instigated lawsuits. Those new oil rigs at Prudhoe Bay are not far from Harley Shield's mission field. How will they affect his labors? Will capable native administrators and organiza tions share in the management of land development and mineral leases for the benefits of their people? Or will the needy, exploited Eskimos continue to be treated as incompetent wards, to subsist indefinitely on welfare? If the Eskimos are not granted equal opportunity in their own land, how can our missionaries convince them that the “ white man’s God” is a loving Saviour of all humanity, in whose sight every soul is equally precious? There is an old saying: “ What you do speaks louder than what you say.” Let us pray that decisions about uses of the mil lions in oil leases and the method of delivering the liquid gold will not be based upon greed and dis crimination, but upon fairness and retribution. Then the seed planted by our missionaries in the frigid Arctic will surely bring forth an abundant harvest. ---------------KB Photographs by Louise Yarbrough, Alaska Travel Divi sion, and the author. 11
nights; the nearness of moon and stars, and their reflection on the snow. In the spring, the tundra bursts forth with 300 varieties of wild flowers. “ Jets transport passengers, mail and freight to and from Anchorage and Fairbanks every day. Re sponse to emergencies is swift by short wave radio and plane.” The Baptist Church, one of five denominations in Kotzebue, was built in 1956, with parsonage at tached. An average of fifty attend Sunday school. Worship services are held Sunday mornings and Sun day and Wednesday evenings. Each summer, children are led to Christ at Vacation Bible School and at youth camps. Trained college students assist, spon sored by campus student union organizations and the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board. In March, a three-day Arctic Bible Conference is attended by Christians from seven neighboring villages. They come by dog sled, snow machine, boat, airplane, and on foot. This spring the Conference was held in Kotze bue. A previous one was held at Shungnak in a log cabin mission built by a youth team from Tennessee. Bob Lee, a dedicated Christian native, is ministering in Shungnak and Kobuk, villages east of Kotzebue. Miss Valeria Sherard, a missionary at Kiana for eight years, rotates with the Mr. Shield in visiting the various villages. To a minister in this frigid climate, it is heart warming when Eskimos accept Christ as their per sonal Saviour and seek baptism in water the tempera ture of ice water in our refrigerators; when marital problems are solved through total surrender; when college students bone up on dialects and spend their vacations leading others to Christ; and when young men respond to a call to serve as missionaries to their own people. "Our greatest need .is for Eskimo men to be raised up to preach the gospel in Eskimo to Eskimos," missionary Shield told me. Fishing and fur trapping with modern equipment and techniques are principal industries of white Americans, in competition with the Eskimos' crude oomiaks, traps, and harpoons. The state government has been selecting 103 million acres to use or to sell to homesteaders, from public domain. Some of the choice areas are home lands and hunting grounds of natives, who have been granted neither deed nor title. We are forcing the Eskimo to adjust to our “ civil ization” by usurping his habitat and destroying his ecology. We have robbed him of his source of protein diet and substituted alcohol, starches, and sweets. From his underground igloo of whale bone and sod he has moved to thin-walled frame shacks which lack ventilation and insulation. Tuberculosis and syphilis have taken their toll. Infant mortality is twice that of whites. Life expectancy is less than 35 years. Aver age education is fourth grade. We are relocating their youth to urban areas to compete for employment with
NOVEMBER, 1970
Made with FlippingBook Online document