The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 159
692 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
Hudson Stuck emigrated from England to America where he settled
in Texas. The young man experienced difficult times, keeping himself
alive by alternating work as a ranch hand with teaching. By mid-1888
Stuck had decided to work for the Episcopal Church. He attended the
theology school of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee,
and graduated in 1892. After graduation, he filled a pulpit in Cuero in
south Texas, and after two years there became the rector of the largest
Episcopal Church in the region located in Dallas, Texas.
While on a visit to Texas in 1902, Bishop Peter Trimble Rowe of
Alaska asked Stuck, half in jest, to become his archdeacon of the
Yukon. Two years later, at the age of thirty-eight, Stuck accepted and
left for the north, and, as it turned out, his life's work. Stuck died in
Fort Yukon, Alaska, on October 11, 1920. He had lived a full and
useful life.
Stuck was an adventurous spirit, and in the north he found an outlet
for his energies. He combined the characteristics of a pioneer and an
explorer with the determination of a social reformer. But first and
foremost he remained a cultured English gentleman all of his life, well-
groomed and widely read. An athletic man who stood five-feet-ten and
weighed a mere 140 pounds, he became a dog musher of reknown. He
left on his maiden sled-dog journey soon after Christmas 1904. He was
gone for lo0 days, twenty of which registered -300 or colder, and he
covered 1,480 miles in sixty-two days of mushing (p. 84).
Stuck believed that "the main task for the missionary . .. was to pre-
serve the physical existence of the Natives" (p. 96). To that end he la-
bored tirelessly all of his life, establishing missions, schools, and hospi-
tals, and badgering church officials in New York to make greater
financial contributions to the Alaskan work. He traveled by dog team in
the winters, and with the motorized river boat, the Pelican during the
summers, and soon had visited every Native community and mining
camp within his domain.
He became a champion of Native rights and welfare, and his goal was
to create a viable, Christian people living in a traditional way, free of
white influence. These views put him at odds with the mainstream
thinking of the church. Stuck, as a prolific author, became an effective
advocate for his ideas. When the Carlisle Packing Company established
a cannery at the mouth of the Yukon River and Native salmon catches
declined drastically as a result, creating great hardships, Stuck fought
an extended battle with the federal bureaucracy. Eventually, he was
successful when commercial salmon fishing finally ceased.
Historian Dean has written a fine biography of an important north-
ern historical figure. He has skillfully used the appropriate source ma-
terials, including Stuck's diaries. It is a work which gives the reader a159
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991, periodical, 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101214/m1/183/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.