Heroes of To-Day

by Mary Rosetta Parkman

After a sleepless night we were up before daybreak. It was still blowing a gale; had some breakfast; tried to hitch the dogs, but they would not face the storm, so I resigned myself to the situation and remained in camp. It was my birthday, too. I kept busy chopping wood for the fire.... In carrying a heavy log down the side of the mountain, I tripped, fell many feet, and injured shoulder slightly.

After another cold and shivering night we found the wind somewhat abated and without breakfast hitched up the dogs, packed sled, and were traveling before it was light.... Early in the day while piloting the way I encountered bad ice, open water, broke through and got wet. After that I felt my way with ax in hand, snow-shoes on feet, until it grew dark. In the darkness I broke through the ice and escaped with some difficulty....

A worker in a lonely frontier post where there were plentiful discouragements once said: “When I am tempted to think that I am having a hard time I just think of Bishop Rowe. Then I realize that it is possible to feel that creature comforts are not matters of first importance. How splendidly he proves that a man can rise above circumstances, and still march on and laugh on no matter what may be happening about him or to him!”

We have seen how the Bishop of Alaska fares in winter when the world is a vast whiteness save only for the heaving dark of the sea; when the avalanches are booming on the mountains; when the winds are sweeping through the cañons, and all the air is filled with ice-dust. What can he accomplish through these journeys that he should forego all comfort and risk life itself?

First, he brings light and cheer to the homesick miners—to the dull-eyed, discouraged men who have struggled and toiled without success, and to the excited, watchful ones who fear to lose what they have won.

“Where are all the people going?” asked a stranger in Fairbanks one Sunday.

“Bishop Rowe is here,” replied the hotel clerk smilingly. “Everybody turns out when he comes to town. You see,” he added thoughtfully, “he somehow knows what a man needs no matter where he is or what he is. There is something that goes home to each one who listens.”

But the adventurers from civilization are not the bishop’s chief care. His first thought is for the Indians and Eskimos, who, if they have gained somewhat, have suffered much through the coming of the white men to their shores.

“Our people have for the most part been consistently engaged in plundering Alaska,” he said. “We have grown rich on its salmon and furs, while the natives who formerly had plenty feel the pinch of famine and cold. We take from the country everything we can get and even make the Indians pay a tax on the trees they cut down; but we do nothing for the land in the way of building roads and bridges, or for the people in the way of protecting them from the evils that the coming of the white men has brought upon them.”

In so far as it lies in his power, the bishop tries to atone for this despoiling of Alaska by working whole-heartedly for the natives—teaching them more wholesome ways of living, giving them food and medicine in times of distress, providing sawmills to give them work, introducing reindeer to supply clothing in the place of the seals that are fast disappearing, and building churches, schools, and hospitals. He has, besides, gone to Washington and described to the President and the lawmakers the pitiable state of the Alaskan Indians, and pleaded for reservations where they could first of all be taught how to maintain health under the new conditions of life that have been forced upon them, and then given suitable industrial training and the chance of earning a livelihood. The laws that have been passed to secure fair play for the original Alaskans have been won largely through the persistent and effective championship of Bishop Rowe.