The 
 
 Woman's Home 
 Missionary 
 Society 
 ^ in Alaska 
 
 Miss Wathall (missionary in Nome) starting out for a winter ride 
 
 WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY. METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 150 Fifth Avenue. New York City 
 
 50 or less, 6c.; 50 to 100. 10c. 
 
The Woman's Home Missionary Society in Alaska 
 
 Annahel/e Kent 
 
 We call ourselves a patriotic people, but of all the venturesome spirits that seek 
 out the unexplored corners of the earth few show interest in the exploration of our 
 own wonderful Alaska — except in the rush for gold. Some of us know that the govern- 
 ment is building a railroad, but we hardly realize that it is being built from Seward, 
 on the Gulf of Alaska, to the Xanana River in Central Alaska, and later is to be 
 extended to Seward Peninsula, on which Nome and Sinuk are situated. 
 
 The United States has owned Alaska for more than fifty years, but the mass of 
 our people have little idea, even yet, of its immense natural wealth and advantages, 
 or its great extent. It has wonderful variety of scenery and vegetation, and rivals the 
 Empire of Japan in the number of its islands. 
 
 We think of Alaska as a land of snow-clad mountains, but it has a vast extent 
 of lowlands and rolling plains. 
 
 The Woman's Home Missionary Society has two missions on the mainland, and 
 one on the island of Unalaska, in the Aleutian chain. At the latter point is located 
 Jesse Lee Home, an industrial Home and school which is the source of help and bless- 
 ing not only for the nearby country, but for far-away localities. The whaling boats 
 
and revenue cutters that go up and down Bering Sea often bring to the Home children 
 who need its sheUering care, or the sick or injured who have no other hospital pos- 
 sibilities. The need of increased hospital facilities is very great, and must be met in the 
 near future. "I was sick and ye ministered unto me," is still a part of the "inasmuch." 
 
 Hilah Seward Industrial Home is at Sinuk, a small native vihage some thirty miles 
 northwest of Nome, and that distance from store, bank and postoffice. . Here are 
 gathered about twenty little boys and girls who receive Christian home training. 
 They are bright, lovable children, and well worth the time and money spent on them. 
 
 This mission was founded in 1906, and the missionaries were eagerly welcomed 
 by the natives, in spite of the fact that the white men they had previously known had 
 brought them whiskey, and sometimes carried off their women and young girls on the 
 whaling vessels. The Eskimos are very ignorant and superstitious, but eager to 
 learn, and, when converted, become very dependable. 
 
 The only means of transportation from and to Sinuk in summer is by sea, so a 
 boat is essential for the missionaries as well as the natives. A mission boat, the "New 
 Jersey," was sent in 1910. On the first walrus hunt made by its help, the men killed 
 fourteen walruses, bringing back the skins, tusks, and as much of the meat as it was safe 
 to load on the schooner. (A single walrus often weighs three thousand pounds.) 
 This gave the natives a good supply of meat for the winter. 
 
This boat was lost in a storm in October, 1915. Its successor, the "Jewel-Guard," 
 named after our beloved children's societies, and built by their contributions, is now 
 doing the same beneficent work. 
 
 Of the Lavinia Wallace Young Mission, at Nome, Dr. Parsons, Superintendent of 
 Methodist Missions in Alaska, wrote, "It is one of the finest native missions in 
 Alaska." It was founded in 1911, and includes a home for the missionary's family, a 
 wooden church building seating three hundred, a gymnasium, carpenter's shop, and 
 social hall, the latter three being in constant use. The young people delight in the 
 music and games, and thus are kept off the streets and out of the saloons. The prayer 
 meeting room is crowded on Wednesday night, as is the church building on Sunday. 
 The Eskimo boys have installed a telephone in the gymnasium, and keep an attendant 
 there to answer calls. They advertise that when help is needed a call will bring one or 
 more boys to do the work. They keep fourteen dogs, and sleds, so they can attend to 
 freighting and messenger service. 
 
 During the past few years the Eskimos have been migrating in goodly numbers to 
 southwestern Alaska, locating at Port Muller, on the mainland about three hundred 
 miles east of Unalaska. There is urgent call for the opening of a mission there, and 
 for establishing a hospital at Nome. Both of these "open doors" should be entered in 
 the near future.