Profiles of Former Mission Churches

In the fall of 1894 a mission with a boarding school was opened on the west bank of the Akulurak River. At that time it was called St. Joseph's Mission, although the name would be changed at a later date. The four Sisters of Saint Ann, who arrived to help the Jesuits staff the school, unwittingly alienated the Native people by their lack of understanding of the Native cultural practices. The shamans played a key role in this collision of cultures, which eventually brought about the closing of the school in the spring of 1898.

Jesuit priests reopened the mission in 1902 and were soon joined by a Jesuit Brother. In 1905 the school was reopened, but this time it was called St. Mary's Mission, as the church in Nome had taken St. Joseph as their patron. The school was staffed and operated by the Ursuline Sisters and the Jesuits, first as a day school and then as a boarding school. Due to the great epidemics of 1900 and 1918, many of the children at the school were orphans. Some of these stayed at the school 10 or more years.

Although St. Mary's was readily accessible to the people it was meant to serve, its location was very poor in other respects. Heating was a major concern. Fuel for its 14 stoves was driftwood gathered along the riverbanks, when the river was open, and then towed by rafts to the mission. Gardening was not productive, because of the poor soil and short growing season. They had to trade salmon for vegetables with Holy Cross Mission, which meant there was an annual need for over 20,000 fish. Getting supplies and log rafts up the Akulurak slough, with its 52 twisting turns, and often low water, was always a formidable challenge. Lakes formed under the buildings as the permafrost thawed. Water had to be carried from the river. Fierce blizzards often swept the area. Buildings hurriedly built to supply a need, soon developed cracks, making it almost impossible to keep out the winds, rains, ice and snow.

By 1918, it was decided that the mission must be moved, but several unforeseen circumstances delayed the move for many years, among these were the Spanish Influenza Epidemic and the Great Depression. In 1925 the Sisters and Girls House was destroyed by fire and had to be rebuilt. Then in 1929 a second fire left the church in ashes. The new church was built and blessed in 1933.

In 1949 an historic meeting took place at St. Mary's. Present were Bishop Francis Gleeson, S.J., the Jesuit Provincial of the Oregon Province, the General Mission Superior and eight other Jesuit missionaries. At this meeting it was decided that the mission should be moved to a new site on the Andreafsky River, the site of the present St. Marys Mission. The move took place on August 2, 1951.

Manley Hot Springs is about 5 miles north of the Tanana River on Hot Springs Slough, near the end of the Elliott Highway, 160 road miles west of Fairbanks. The Elliott is the only road leading to Manley Hot Springs, and it runs through the town to the Tanana River boat landing, three miles southwest.

Settlement in the area began around 1902 when mining prospector John Karshner claimed several hot springs and began a homestead and vegetable farm on 278 acres. Around the same time a U.S. Army telegraph station and a trading post were built. The area became a supply point for miners and was known as Baker's Hot Springs, after nearby Baker Creek. In 1907, miner Frank Manley built the Hot Springs Resort Hotel, which included a restaurant and bar, plus a bowling alley, billiard room, barber shop and, most popular of all, an Olympic-size indoor swimming pool using water from the hot springs. Between the resort and mining, the town of "Hot Springs" prospered and soon supported a general store, a bakery, a local newspaper and other businesses.

But in 1913 the thriving resort burned to the ground. Mining was also declining, and by 1920 only 29 residents lived in Hot Springs. The name was changed to Manley Hot Springs in 1957. A small school opened in 1958, and in 1959 completion of the Elliott Highway gave Manley a road link with Fairbanks during the summer. A new resort opened in the 1980's but later closed. The Manley Roadhouse, however, built in 1906, still opens during summer months. In 2011, according to Alaska Department of Labor Estimates, the population was 91. Native residents are Athabaskan. Gardening, hunting, and fishing provide food sources, with salmon and moose providing the primary meat sources. It is likely that Catholic missionaries who came through the region with gold seekers might have stopped at Hot Springs during the early 1900's, but it not known exactly when a Catholic presence began there.
Manley never had a resident priest. For the most part the mission, dedicated to Saint Joseph, was served by visiting priests from Fairbanks. A deacon also visited from North Pole from 1991 to 2003.

St. Joseph Mission was closed in 2003 because there were no more active Catholics in the area. The church building was transferred to the city for a token fee, with the stipulation that it be used for religious purposes only; and that if used for other purposes, it could be taken back by the Diocese of Fairbanks.

"During the gold rush, a town grew up on the banks of the Kuzitrin River near the house, or igloo, of a woman whom the miners called Mary. She had often given lost and lonely prospectors food and friendship, and before long 'Marys Igloo' at the head of navigable waters of the Kuzitrin became a mining camp. As soon as the miners settled there, Eskimos from the vicinity of the Imuruk Basin also began to settle in Marys Igloo. When the mining boom collapsed a few years later, the Eskimos remained."

In 1906, a Jesuit priest who was stationed at the Nome parish, wrote a letter to his Superior, Prefect Apostolic Joseph Crimont, suggesting that Marys Igloo might be the best place for a new mission. That year, he visited the roadhouse of the Bruce Lloyd family in Marys Igloo, where he said Mass for them and few Eskimos whom he had previously baptized in Nome. "Convinced that Marys Igloo should have a chapel, the priest bought the roadhouse in 1907 and spent two months converting it into a chapel and quarters for a priest."

By 1907 there were 250 Catholics in the Bering Strait area with thirty-five of them living in the village of Marys Igloo. The priest began making elaborate plans for a center which was to include a church and orphanage for the Eskimo people of the area. It would be based at Marys Igloo, staffed by two Sisters, a Brother and a Priest, and the proposed house would be large enough to accommodate the staff and twenty children. In March of 1908, the priest laid out his plan in a letter to Crimont, making it clear that he felt the Church need only help the Natives organize themselves into "self-enclosed, self-sufficient social, economic, and religious communities." He was strongly opposed to the changes he felt the government schools were imposing on the Eskimo people.

In September of 1908, Crimont responded to the priest by sending another Jesuit priest, native to France, who had been studying the Eskimo language, to be the priest at Marys Igloo.

In June of 1915, after eight years at Marys Igloo, the French priest left rather abruptly "to answer the call of the tricolore of his native France." The first priest left Nome in September of 1915 to replace the French priest at Marys Igloo, where he found himself in a painful situation, as the French priest sudden departure had caused rumors and confusion, which had been escalated by an anti-Catholic campaign. Within a few months things began to settle down, and by 1916 more than a dozen new Catholics were brought into the Church.

For a year, the Jesuit priest remained alone at Marys Igloo ministering to the people and doing his own housekeeping, woodcutting, water carrying, and dog keeping. Then in 1917, a generous gift enabled him to continue his plan for a center by moving the church at Marys Igloo to a new location, that of Pilgrim Springs.

Pilgrim Springs is located 60 miles north of Nome on the left bank of the Pilgrim River. Mineral hot springs welling up at the site made it a perfect place for a popular resort and ranch after gold was discovered on the Seward Peninsula around the turn of the century.

In October, 1917, the James F. Halpin family bought the hot springs ranch and gave it to a Jesuit priest who was now in charge of the Seward Peninsula Eskimos. The priest no longer considered Marys Igloo a suitable center for large scale missionary activity which would include an orphanage. On April 22, 1918, he moved to the ranch and began the process of turning it into a mission and orphanage. Gradually the supplies and lumber from the mission buildings at Marys Igloo were moved to Pilgrim Springs, and the ranch became the new Our lady of Lourdes Mission.

The Great Spanish Influenza epidemic that broke out on the Seward Peninsula in late 1918 stimulated the development of the new mission. The Native death toll left many orphans, and in early August, 1919, a dozen orphans were moved from Nome to the Pilgrim Springs orphanage. In mid-August a Jesuit Brother and five Ursuline Sisters joined a Jesuit priest to serve at the mission. In October a Jesuit Brother arrived to complete the mission staff.

"For two decades the Pilgrim Springs mission flourished. Its farm and gardens helped considerably toward making it self-supporting. In 1923, it was the scene of a bitter-sweet sorrow. On 15 December a Jesuit priest in his lone attempt to bring a crate of oranges to the orphans at the mission for Christmas, froze to death about four miles above the mission on the banks of the Pilgrim River."

In 1935 there were 60 children at the mission, but by 1941 there were no longer enough orphans to justify keeping the mission open. Firewood in the area had become scarce and the buildings were in dire need of repair. The last resident priest died there on January 23, 1941, and the new Superior closed the mission on July 31, 1941.

Umkumiut is located on Nelson Island's Toksook Bay. At one time, the village was inhabited year-round. Many years later, Umkumiut became a temporary tent village and was used as a spring and summer sealing camp for the people of Nightmute, a Central Yup'ik Eskimo village 20 air miles to the east. Though the village never had a resident priest ministered baptisms from the 1930's until the 1950's. However, some clergymen spent summer months in the tent village ministering to Umkumiut Catholics.

During the summer of 1969, a Diocesan priest built a church at Umkumiut. The church's unique architectural design was conceived by the priest and the plans were drawn up by a Jesuit Volunteer. The sum of $20,000.00 was donated by the Extension Society for the cost of building material while labor was freely given by volunteers. Building material was transported by barge and off- loaded on the beaches of Umkumiut. Archives at The Alaskan Shepherd describe the church architecture as “reminiscent of an ancient, many oared galley," appropriate for coastal peoples. The Archives goes on to say, "were it not so remote, many people would come to see its somewhat unusual but architecturally significant style." Actually, the priest interprets his design as "a modified A-frame tent, with exposed interior trusses which reminded people of the safety provided by an upturned skiff or eskimo umiaq."

The Diocese of Fairbanks' 1999-2000 Directory and Calendar records no active parish existing at Umkumiut and no priest or deacon has been assigned to the, once seasonal, parish of Christ the King.