White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1919-02-02
$4,000 Native People in Arctic
Zone Need Everything but
Refrigerators.
10 VILLAGES HAVE SCHOOLS
Teaching Hygiene in High Attitudes,
Cooperative Stores, and Raising
Reindeer-Each Teacher a
Social Worker.

Misunderstanding educators have
spoken of what education ought to do,
and have propounded theories the bur
den of which has been that education
and life should be synonymous, one
part of the United States has beer ex-
periencing such an ideal in actual
practice. In Alaska each ~schoolhouse
L. a social center for the accomplish
ment of practical ends. Many of the
buildings. in addition to the recitation
room, contain also kitchen, quarters
of the teacher, and a laundry and
baths for the use of the native COM
munity.
Every teacher is n social worker.
Every district superintendent, In visit
Ing his widely separated schools, must
travel vast distances by sled over the
frozen, trackless wilderness. FIRE.
quently he must risk his life On treach-
erous, tempestuous waters in a native
canoe or small power boat. He must
endure the violence of the northern
storms. he rigors of the arctic winter,
and the foulness of the nntive huts In
which he must often find shelter.
Directed by Bureau of Education.
This work Is carried on under the
supervision of the bureau of education,
and the details of current operation
are reported upon by william Hamil-
ton He tells that there are in Alaska
approximately $4,000 natives In viii
lagos ranging from 30 or 40, up to 300
mr. AM nargnnA Caaffara1 alanD thau-
sands OF miles of coast line and on the
great rivers. Some of the villages on
remote islands or beside the frozen
ocean are brought into touch with the
outside world only once or twice "a
year. when visited by a United States
coast guard steamer on its annual
cruise. or by the supply vessel sent
by the bureau of education.
Many of the settlements have no reg
ular mail service and can communi-
cate with one another and with the
outside world only by occasionally
passing boats In summer and sleds in
winter. During eight months of the
year all the villages In Alaska, with
the exception of those on the southern
coast, are reached only by trails over
the s~now-covered land or frozen rivers.
In spite of the difficulties of the
problem Il United States public school
has been established In each of sew
enty villages. In many instances the
school is the only e~levating power In
the community.
tuberculosis, pneumonia, rheuma-
tism, and venereal diseases prevail to
an alarming extent In many Of the
native villages. and In its endeavor to
safeguard the health of the natives of
Alaska the bureau of education MAIN
tains hospitals in five important CEN
tiers. II employs physicians and nurs-
es, who devote themselves to medical
and sanitary work. and provides medi-
cal supplies and textbooks to the
teachers to enable them to treat minor
ailments and i~ntelligently TO supervise
hygieDic measures. There are extern
sive regions In which the services of
a physician are not obtainable. Ac-
cordingly, IL often becomes the duty OF
a teacher to render first aid to the
injured or TO care for a patient
through the course of a serious illness.
Supervise Cooperative Store.
Another duty Of the teacher is to SUI
pervise the cooperative store which is
owned and managed by the natives.
who deal In everything but refrigeia-
tors. Strange to say. the government
of the white man has to protect the
native from the white man himself.
To secur the native from the intru-
sions Of the INSCRIPTIONS trader, the
bureau of education has adopted the
policy of establishing reservations to
which large numbers Of natives can be
attracted and where they can obtain
fish and game and conduct their own
Industrial and commercial enterprises.
The settlement at Noorvik. on the Ko-
bulk river. In arctic Alaska. Is one of
the most conspicuous successes OF this
policy.
With their advancement In civiliza-
ton he Eskimos living at Deering,
on the bleak sea coast, craved a new
home. Lack of timber compelled them
to live In the semi-underground novels
of their ancestors. while the killing off
of game animals made IL increasingly
difficult to obtain food. An uninhab-
tied tract on the bank of the Kobuk
river, Is miles square, Astounding In
aame, fish and timber, was reserved
by executive order for. these Eskimos.
and thither they migrated in the sum-
mer of 1915. ON this tract in the arc
tic wilderness the %colonists, under the
leadership of the teachers, within two
years have built a village with well
laid-out streets. neat single family
houses, gardens, a mercantile company,
a sawmill, an electric light plant, and
wireless telegraph station which keeps
them In touch with the outside world.