A FLYING BISHOP

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 88, 12 January 1928, Page 9

A FLYING BISHOP

HOW HE KEPT FAITH IN ALASKA In Point Hope, Alaska, whose front yard is the inhospitable Arctic Ocean, Archdeacon Goodman and his little flock of Christian Eskimos awaited the coming of their Bishop, the Right Rev Peter Trimble Rowe, D.D. They had not seen him for a long time. It is rot very easy for Bishops to get about in those frozen parishes adjoining the Arctic Circle. But Bishop Rowe was due for one of his triennial Episcopal visits there last summer, and the parishioners were happily 'expectant. They knew he would not disappoint them if it was within his power to make the trip. And Bishop Rowe felt exactly as they did. But cne could. not always tell what the facilities for travel would be. He planned to take the usual route: steamer as far as Victoria, and United States revenue cutter to Point Hope, late in July. The visit paid he would return thence to Nome. However,' when he got to Nome, on the outward journey, Bishop Bowe learned that the trip by water could not be made this year. It began to look if another winter must, pass before he could greet the Eskimos in their faroff parish. Still the Bishop was by no means willin'- to forgo the trip unless he was convinced that it could not in any way be made. He knows his Alsaka well, having travelled about a goad deal up there, as he says, “on foot, with dogs, canoes, small boats, gas boats, steamers, railroads and autos.” On*y one means of transportation he had not tried; the aeroplane. The water route was out of the question, they assured' him; but there remained the air. “This inode of Episcopal visitation is expensive,” the Bishop had just observed. telling of his adventures in the magazine “Spirit of Nations, but it was the only way to keep my appointment with Archdeacon Goodman and his Eskimos.” So he decided it must be done. „ , _ . , The distance between Nome and Point Hope is 700 miles. The Bishop left Nome on August 3, and reached his ■destination without mishap the following dav. It was, he says, a great experience. When the natives saw their Bishop stepping out of an aeroplane they were naturally excited.- News of the arrival quickly spread all over the Point. Their Bishop had flown to them through the air. , Much work had to be crowded into a very short time.: for on August 5 Bishop Rowe must take to the air cnee more, bound for Nome. But zeal and enthusiasm permitted the accomplishment of all the tasks at hand. TV confirmed a* class of thirty Eskimos, prepared through the long, lonely months preceding by Archdeacon Goodman. And the Bishop also received and forwarded to the Church Missions House a gift of 50 dols., patiently amassed V the Point Hop* people