Present Status of Alaskan Eskimos— Lantis 41 



few people are really skilled and also have access to the necessary 

 materials. 



Not every village that has a school has a resident missionary. 

 Such missionaries as the Moravians along the Kuskokwim River 

 and the Roman Catholics at Hooper Bay and on the lower 

 Yukon travel to visit outlying settlements as few secular teachers 

 do. A.N.S. teachers generally have undertaken more community 

 functions than the Territorial teachers, who until recently have 

 been in the towns and not in the relatively isolated, wholly 

 Eskimo villages. Even so, the typical teacher or missionary does 

 not travel to the Eskimos' outyling settlements, except perhaps 

 for one quick trip a year. Field nurses travel much more. 



Although widely scattered Eskimos are subject to the same 

 influences by Whites from the United States and although they 

 themselves travel widely in west Alaska and thus influence each 

 other, still one cannot give a generalized description of an Es- 

 kimo village much more easily now than one could a hundred 

 years ago. Regarding the houses, for example, one cannot say 

 much more than that they generally are makeshift wooden struc- 

 tures incorporating any other handy materials: sods, corrugated 

 iron, whale bones, or walrus hide. Most homes are heated by 

 stoves— often home-made— burning coal, fuel oil or wood. On 

 the trail, Primus stoves are used. Even poor homes have an 

 alarm clock, a modern oil lamp, enamel-ware kitchen utensils, 

 crockery, hand-turned sewing machine, flashlight and similar 

 utilitarian articles. Many homes in a village like Unalakleet are 

 well furnished at the level of a comfortable village or farm 

 home on the Northern Plains. (For greater detail, see "Accul- 

 turation of Alaskan Eskimos," which will be published in the 

 Encyclopedia Arctica, V. Stefansson, editor.) 



In the post-war years, housing has been a serious problem not 

 only for Whites in the rapidly-growing Railbelt but also for 

 Eskimos. In 1949, the Alaska Housing Authority, as a trial, 

 granted loans to rebuild 42 houses at Hooper Bay . The house- 

 holder was loaned not more than $500, to be repaid within six 

 years. In 1950, six Eskimo villages on the Bering Sea coast 

 benefited by 91 completely new homes and improvements 



