Religion: Mushing Bishop

In Seattle last week, a ruddy, paunchy little man quietly celebrated his Sard birthday. Then he went to Victoria, B. C. to visit for a week his 50-year-old wife, his youngest sons, schoolboys of 12 and 14. There this week Rt. Rev. Peter Trimble Rowe, oldest active bishop in the Anglican communion and one of the great missionaries of his time, celebrates the 44th anniversary of his consecration as Missionary Bishop of Alaska.

When Bishop Rowe went there in 1895, the Episcopal Church had three missions in its Alaska diocese (586,400 square miles). To reach them, he had to mush with a dog sled. From Indian and Eskimo companions, the Bishop learned to keep his socks dry at 78 below zero. He learned the knack of building a fire in a howling gale, learned to pick off wolves outside the camp circle with a rifle. Bishop Rowe mushed 2,000 miles each winter—in sum, he said, more than any other man in Alaska.

One of Bishop Rowe’s first sermons was preached to the sourdoughs in Cy Marx’s Fairbanks saloon. Marx, a Jew, started the collection with a $10 bill, raised $1,400. “Tough and generous” Tex Rickard, who ran a saloon and gambling house, helped raise money for the Episcopal hospital in Circle City, first in the interior of Alaska. In those gold-rush days, Bishop Rowe bunked with Rex Beach and Jack London, taught the latter about Huskies.

In 30 years Bishop Rowe visited the U. S. only ten times, to lecture and raise money. Four times he refused bishoprics in the States. Never a great missionary church, the Episcopal Church kept Alaska on meagre rations. The Presbyterians and Roman Catholics kept larger staffs in the territory. But although Alaska’s baptized Episcopalians number only 6,360, Bishop Rowe could say that his church has “a prestige among the people of Alaska which is not enjoyed by the other communions.” He plans to return to Alaska in January, to be among the Indians whose faith he admires. They will creep to church on hands & knees, against bitter winds which would blow a man down. “White people,” says Bishop Rowe, “make me a little tired. They are ready to take everything, and give nothing.”