The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1919-01-30
MANY new WAYS
TO AID ALASKANS
25ooo Native People in Arctic
Zone Need Everything but
Refrigerators.
10 VILLAGES have SCHOOLS
Teaching Hygiene in High Aitituoes'
Cooperative Stores, and Raising
Reindeer-Eaeh Teacher a
Social Worker.

washington.-While educators nave
snoken of what education ought TO 40
and have propounded theories the Dur
dom of which has been that education
and life should be synonymous, one
mart of the United States has been eA.
neriencing such an ideal in actuai
n,.actice In Alaska each schoolhouse
is social center for the accomplish
ment of practical ends. Many Oh lne
buildings in addition to the recltation
room. contain also kitchen, quarters
of the teacher, and laundry ana
baths for the use of the native COIL
munity.
Every teacher is a. social worker.
Every district superintendent, in visit
ing bis widely separated schools, must
travel vast distances by sled over the
frozen. trackless wilderness. FIRE.
ouently he must risk his life on treach-
ero,is. tempestuous waters in native
canoe or small power boat. He must
endure the violence of the northern
storms the rigors of the arctic winter,
and the foulness of the native 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 VII
lagos ranging from 80 or 40, up TO 300
or 400 persons, scattered along thou
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
year, when visited by 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 snow-covered land or frozen rivers.
In spite of the difficulties of the
problem a United States public school
) has been established in each of sew
enty villages. In many instances the
school is the only elevating power in
the community.
tuberculosis, pneumonia, rheuma-
| III rav.a 10
an alarming extent in many of the
native villages, and in its endeavor to
j safeguard the health of the natives OF
, ALASKA the bureau of education main
, tains hospitals in five important CEN
, tiers. 1t employs physicians and nurs-
es, who devote themselves TO medical
8 and sanitary work, and provides medi-
: cal supplies and textbooks to the
teachers to enable them to treat minor
ailments and intelligently to supervise
hygienic measures. There are extern
Z sive regions in which the services of
a physician are not obtainable. Ac-
. cordingly, it often becomes the duty of
. a teacher to render first aid to the
!, injured or to care for patient
]. through the course of serious illness.
. Supervise Cooperative Store.
2 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 refrigera-
/, torS. Strange to say, the government
of the white man has to protect the
/, native from the white man himself
t. To secure the native from the intru-
n sions of the INSCRIPTIONS trader. the
" bureau of education has adopted the
;. policy of establishing reservations to
, which large numbers of natives can be
y attracted and where they can obtain
u fish and game ana conduct their own
3 industrial and commercial enterprises
70 The settlement at Noorvil, on the Ko
n bulk river. in arctic Alaska, is one of
y the most conspicuous successes of this
II policy.
= With their advancement in civiliza
3 ton the Eskimos living at Deering
on the bleak sea. coast, craved a new
home. Lack of timber compelled then
~ to live in the acknowledgement novels
of their ancestors, while the killing of
of game animals made it increasingl,
! difficult to obtain food. An uninhab
> tied tract on the bank of the Kobul
river, Is miles square, Astounding in
: game, 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 tn,
leadership of the teachers, within tw'
years have built a village with wei
laid-out streets, neat single famil,
houses, gardens, mercantile company
a sawmill, an electric light plant, an,
wireless telegraph station which keep
them in touch with the outside world.
= Hog Weighed ZIP Pounds.
II rr.l-a n