Short Sketches from Oldest America

Publishers' Preface
From the small size of this volume, one would hardly realize, perhaps, what an immense amount of labor and patient research its writing must necessarily represent. The author, who was first sent to northwestern Alaska in the summer of 1890, and who, by the bye, has, with the exception of two vacations of a year each, been constantly at his post in that bleak country ever since, found himself one day landed, with his possessions, upon the inhospitable sea-beach of the Point Hope peninsula, where for weeks he was compelled to shelter himself from wind and rain, as best he could, in an improvised tent made of barrels and boxes with canvas thrown over them. Finally, the carpenters of some of the whaling ships were got together and a house, which had been framed in distant San Francisco, was put up for him, a few hundred yards from the water's edge.
A mile or so away lay a large native village, the inhabitants of which naturally regarded him as a great curiosity. But he found himself quite unable to communicate with them otherwise than by signs, as the printed vocabularies and grammars, with which he had been supplied, proved to be inaccurate and practically valueless.
His house finished and no scholars being forthcoming, he proceeded one day to capture a native lad whom he found on the beach, and, leading him home, taught him several letters of the alphabet and then baked him a cake. This system of rewarding attendance with something to eat rapidly brought other scholars. Older visitors followed, and he soon had a school in active operation and then a lecture-room.
Prior to Dr. Driggs's arrival, the experiences which the natives had had with the whites had not been universally satisfactory. Outside of rare meetings with the officers and crews of the government's revenue cutters, their white acquaintances had been pretty much confined to the class known as beach-combers, or deserters from the steam-whaling fleet. These are described as a rough, unscrupulous set of fellows, too worthless to obtain better employment in San Francisco, where they are enlisted. Some of these undesirable visitors had already appeared at Point Hope and had outrageously abused the peaceful inhabitants before our author's arrival there.