In a Snow-buried Village
Far up along the ice-bound shores, above the Arctic Circle into Eskimo land, our missionary traveled with his dog-team. In the month of May one year, he and his dogs headed for the extreme west of Alaska, which is very near Siberia.
The ice was still frozen, and the dogs often had to pull up and down over tremendous ice mountains-mountains caused by upheavals in the ice. Always they had to keep a watchful eye for any exposed fresh breaks in the ice, for there was the great danger of the ice breaking off. If it did, they would float and drift away upon the little island of ice, called an "ice floe," perhaps far out into the Arctic Ocean.
At Wales they took a plane, and were soon soaring high above the clouds in the brilliant sunshine. The dogs calmly dozed or strolled about. Between breaks in the clouds the missionary could catch glimpses of mountains and great forests, and then as they flew across the wide Kotzebue Sound it looked like an unending world of frozen white.
Above the Arctic Circle, at Kotzebue, the plane landed, and the dogs, bored by their inactivity, eagerly jumped out. A missionary boy with his own dog-team met the missionary there, and together they started out on a hundred-mile trip to another mission station at Noorvik.
The missionary boy-guide loved the Lord Jesus-and he loved husky dogs. He was only twelve years old, and lived in a village where there are more husky dogs than people. There were about a thousand people in his village, and twelve hundred husky dogs. Winter lasts for nine months of the year above the Arctic Circle, so the people really need their dogs, and nearly every Eskimo family has their own dog team.
The trip to Noorvik was a happy one. The missionary and the boy had wonderful times as they sang together, and enjoyed the breath-takingly beautiful scenery God had created entirely unspoiled by the hand of man.
The Eskimo village was still buried in the month of May. In the middle of winter these towns are almost swallowed up, as tremendous snow drifts often cover every house and building. Each hut then looks like a rounded igloo, and a tunnel in the snow has to be dug down in order to find the door. Now the snow and ice was packed, but the village was still well buried in snow.
Unharnessing his dogs, the missionary placed gospel packs upon their backs. The packs contained Testaments, Sunday school papers and tracts, and were so arranged that anyone could help himself from each dog's pack. Soon crowds of curious children started following them around, and began to help pass out the gospel literature. Before long they were joining the missionary in singing gospel songs and choruses as they walked about the buried village. The older Eskimo people stopped their work to watch and to smile, and welcomed the gospel tracts and papers.
In another town, when the children first saw that the huskies were loosed, they screamed with fright and quickly scrambled to the roof of the nearest shed. Most husky dogs are half wild and often vicious, and it took a while to persuade them that these dogs were tame and would not harm them. Finally, they had faith enough to come down, and at last actually petted the Gospel Huskies.
Finally, the missionary arrived in the well-known city of Nome which is the Eskimo capital of the North. Here he found a sad little family of children in a deserted cabin, for their father and mother had both been put in the federal jail. This was another one of the many homes in Alaska ruined by the dreadful curse of drinking. Before this father began to drink he was the world's fastest dog-team racer known. Every year for many years he won the great Cape Nome Eskimo Dog Race.
But now he and his wife were in prison, and how hungry those little children were for the love of the Lord Jesus when the missionary first met them. They had thought that no one really cared for them, and it seemed too good to be true that the Lord Jesus had loved them enough to die for them.
The missionary was given permission to take the five youngest back to a splendid Children's Home, where loving hearts welcomed them and cared for them. The four little Eskimo sisters accepted the Lord as their Savior, and their little three-year-old brother, Jackie, already shows a sweet love for the One who loves him so much.
And now, the children of a famous dog-team racer are already starting out on a far more important race: "Looking unto Jesus!"