Prospecting for Alaska’s Most Desirable Treasure
ALASKA is the largest state in the United States, but with the fewest inhabitants. Its name means “the mainland” or “The Great Land.” The very mention of the name fires the imagination. It is a land of superlatives. With its 586,000 square miles (1,517,733 km2) of land it consists of several geographic areas.
It has the vast northern area with its sparse plant life of shrubs, berries, moss and lichens. There are high mountain ranges with hundreds of active volcanoes and 20,000 square miles (51,800 km2) of glaciers. And finally there is the southern panhandle with the mammoth rain forests. All together, it boasts 3,000,000 lakes. It is inhabited by three ethnic groups—Eskimos, Indians and European stock.
This great country is a literal treasure-house of wealth. First, early traders sought out valuable furs. Then men and industries came seeking the wealth of gold, fish and timber. And most recently oil has been the sought-out treasure.
But there is yet another treasure being sought out in Alaska. This treasure is described in the Bible as the “desirable things of all the nations.” (Haggai 2:7) These “desirable things” are people who are gathered to the true worship of God. The hunting or prospecting for this treasure is done by preaching the good news of the Kingdom.
Early Prospecting
About 1910 a whaling skipper, Captain Beams, began to bring the message of God’s kingdom to Alaska. He spoke with persons whom he met and placed Bible-based literature published by the Watchtower Society.
Then in the late 1920’s and the 1930’s, Frank Day, a resident of Seattle, Washington, made a number of missionary trips to far-flung towns and villages of Alaska. He earned his way by selling eyeglasses. Even though Day had an artificial leg, he practically covered Alaska, planting seeds of Bible truth and leaving Bible literature. Communities from Ketchikan to Nome, a distance of 1,270 air miles (2,044 km), were visited.
During the late 1930’s, Karl Liebau brought the Kingdom message to those living between Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, and the coastal port of Seward. Anchorage was founded in 1915 as a base camp for the laying of the Alaska Railroad, which stretches from Seward on the Gulf of Alaska 487 miles (785 km) northward to the interior city of Fairbanks. Liebau walked 180 miles (290 km) from Anchorage to Seward and back, speaking God’s Word with persons living in the “section houses” located every 26 miles (42 km) along the track.
With the strenuous efforts of such brothers, a good groundwork was laid for graduates of the missionary school of Gilead who were to come. In 1944 eight missionaries, consisting of six single brothers and one married couple, arrived in Alaska to take up work in Anchorage, Juneau and Ketchikan.
As time passed they spread out to other inhabited areas inland, along the coast and to the many coastal islands. They really roughed it, sometimes traveling by train, but often by coastal ships, earning their fare by working as stevedores. They also sailed smaller boats that they borrowed or bought, often experiencing dangers at sea.
They put their sleeping bags down anywhere they could find shelter. They took on all types of part-time work to help cover their travel expenses in this scattered territory. They really won the respect of the people who were not used to seeing ministers of religion take on hard manual work. Truly, these full-time missionaries did much to expand the preaching of the “good news” throughout Alaska, thus helping to establish many of the congregations in that state.
Preaching Despite Severe Weather
Not only can Alaska’s terrain present difficult working conditions, but weather conditions can also be severe. One housewife, who has been living in southeastern Alaska since 1948, describes her first winter in Juneau: “The winter seemed cold to me, with lots of snow. Most of the time the wind, known as ‘The Taku,’ would be blowing. It seems to blow in all directions at once. I can remember seeing it blow out windows and another time knocking over an elderly woman on the street. Once it blew a cannery building off its piling into the Gastineau Channel. It even caught a small airplane and sent it crashing into the channel in front of our home.”
At Fairbanks, in the interior, temperatures can span the range from 100-plus degrees Fahrenheit (38 C) in the summer to minus 70 degrees F (–57 C) in winter’s icy grip. It was into this environment that a group of five Christian couples from the lower part of the United States moved to help out in the preaching work. At that time, in 1959, there were only two Kingdom Halls in Alaska. One was in Anchorage and the other, a small surplus military structure, in Fairbanks. It so happened that one of the newly arrived Witnesses, then serving as the presiding overseer, was skilled in the building trades. He took the initiative in organizing the building of a new Kingdom Hall in Fairbanks, with a seating capacity of 200. This structure was dedicated in September 1961, just nine weeks after construction began, and to this day it serves the needs of two congregations.
This overseer has had a part in the building or remodeling of at least 11 Kingdom Halls and other theocratic building projects throughout Alaska. Today, within the Alaska territory, there are 14 modern Kingdom Halls. Also, there is a building to provide housing for some full-time ministers and a branch office that provides supervision for the congregations and preaching activity in Alaska.
Overcoming Problems of Isolation
What would you do if you were separated from a congregation of Jehovah’s people for 14 years? That was the case of a Christian wife and mother who accompanied her husband to an isolated floating logging camp in 1954. It was situated on the Inside Passage at the south end of Admiralty Island. During all these years this faithful Witness and her three young daughters conducted all the Christian meetings that are normally held in the congregation. They continued their “prospecting” by sharing the “good news” through correspondence and witnessing to the occasional visitor to their “floating” home. Many persons living in remote towns all over Alaska received letters from these devoted servants of God, and a number responded to the letters received, reaching out to make the treasure of God’s Word their own.
Today the mother lives in Alaska’s southernmost city, Ketchikan, and has been able to enjoy the full-time preaching service these past 12 years. All three daughters are continuing the faithful course of their mother. One is married to an elder in Anchorage and the youngest is serving as a member of the Bethel family in Germany.
Preaching in the Remote North
Determined to bring the preaching work to every remote village in their territory, the three congregations in the Fairbanks/North Pole area arranged for the use of four aircraft owned by Witnesses. In a two-year period these congregations contributed more than $14,000 to cover the operating expenses of these aircraft as they traversed the vast areas north of the Alaska mountain range. As many as 14 men per trip shared in the effort to fly into each community in the area, covering approximately 326,000 square miles (844,340 km2). Over 200 villages and towns were visited during the two brief summers.
Along the west coast, the Eskimo population for the most part welcomed the Witnesses, eager to hear the Kingdom message. In the village of Shaktoolik, an older Eskimo couple, upon hearing of the Bible’s promise of a “new system,” pleaded with tears in their eyes, “Please, pray to Jehovah and ask him to let us be in that new order.”
Results of Prospecting
Could you number the gold prospectors that have combed Alaska’s vast reaches, or count the spades of dirt that have been turned, or measure the water used to sluice the gold-bearing gravel? No, one can only guess at the effort put forth to acquire the material wealth that only a surprising few ever found. Likewise, a tremendous amount of “prospecting” has been done by publishers of the “good news” in order to find the “desirable things of all the nations.” And it has “panned out,” sometimes in unexpected places and with surprisingly little effort. Note the following experience:
“My husband and I owned a mining claim about 400 miles (645 km) west of Mt. Susitna. In early April we started for Wisconsin to visit my sister and her husband. Since we had a two-hour wait in Anchorage, we went to see my other sister living there. While there, two of Jehovah’s Witnesses came to the door in what they said was a ‘Christian preaching work.’ I had never heard of Jehovah’s Witnesses so I listened to what they had to say. We actually had only a few minutes to talk, but I liked what I heard and ended up taking the Watchtower and Awake! magazines and also the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. It was the most wonderful book I had ever read! My husband has now read it and feels the way I do about it.” They were baptized in October 1980.
The searching for those who are desirable in God’s eyes in Alaska has been a rewarding work. The 1940 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses does not indicate any witnesses of Jehovah in Alaska. By 1970 there were 814 sharing in the preaching work. During the past 11 years the number grew 57 percent to 1,290 sharing in the preaching work. In April of 1981 there were 3,282 attending the Memorial celebration of Christ’s death. Truly, there are good prospects for a continued ingathering here as well as in many other parts of the world.