ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Freezing winters don't drive them south. Short days don't slow them down. Moose wandering in their yards don't startle them.
That's simply part, they say, of the beauty and uniqueness of Alaska.
To the some 14,000 Latter-day Saints living in Anchorage, the largest city in this northernmost state of the union, and its surrounding rural communities, this is home. And like the trappers and miners who sank in roots a century ago, they are here to stay.
"This is the last frontier," declared Pres. William K. Parks, president of the Anchorage North stake. "It's a beautiful, great place to raise your children, but you have to have a determined attitude because it could get a little hard — the long winter nights and the cold temperatures — but we have beautiful summers."
Indeed, summer in Alaska is almost an exact opposite of winter. Alaskans say they have two main seasons, with only a week of spring and fall in between. Winter days are cold and short. When the snow finally melts and flowers paint grassy slopes with color, the days become long. It's not uncommon to see people working in their gardens almost at midnight.
In northern Alaska in summer, such as Barrow, the sun never sets — hence "The Land of the Midnight Sun."
But in Anchorage the sun does rise and set. And this city of 260,000 is where the Church has grown in about 50 years from a scattering of members holding services in hotel rooms and homes to two stakes — the Anchorage and Anchorage North stakes. The membership has also fed the growth of the adjacent Wasilla Alaska Stake, presided over by Jerry A. Hann.
Alaskan members even have their own temple now, with the dedication of the Anchorage Alaska Temple Jan. 9-10 by President Gordon B. Hinckley. (Please see Jan. 16, 1999, Church News.) The new granite edifice blends well with the Alaskan landscape. On a clear day, an aerial view from a small "bush plane" displays downtown Anchorage on the coast of Cook Inlet, with large chunks of ice flowing in and out with the tide. To the west is Mt. McKinley and to the east are the Chugach Mountains.
People who make Anchorage their home, including Latter-day Saints, come from varied walks of life and ethnic backgrounds. But members all have two things in common — love for Alaska and love of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And both loves have, indeed, contributed to the growth of the Church in this northern country. During a recent visit, the Church News met with Pres. Parks and Pres. Brent M. Wadsworth, president of the Anchorage North stake, to discuss the strength and fortitude of members in Alaska.
Pres. Parks recalled the construction of the Maplewood chapel years ago when Relief Society sisters worked side-by-side with the men, laying brick and hammering nails.
Most members were not born here. They came to Alaska because they wanted to, some even looking for a little adventure, such as Jerry Swan. He was 8 years old, growing up in Oklahoma, when he read Jack London's Call of the Wild and White Fang. He decided someday he'd live in Alaska.
But family responsibilities delayed that goal until 1974, after his children were grown. Today, he is bishop of the singles ward and a member of the Anchorage 17th Ward with his wife, Martha. Through the years, Bishop Swan, a retired iron worker, has worked along the Alaska pipeline in towns and villages throughout the state, including some in the Aleutian Islands.
He even baptized a friend in the Bering Sea. "We had to run out about 60 feet before the water got deep," he related. "The water was so cold that I felt like I was talking in a barrel. There were two-foot waves with whitecaps. If I had made a mistake I could never have said the words again. The cold got to us that much."
Just before his retirement in the mid-1980s, he was superintendent of a clean-up crew in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident.
Brother Swan intends on living out his days in Alaska. After 25 years, Alaska is home.
As it is to Patricia B. Jasper of the Anchorage 9th Ward, Anchorage Alaska Stake. Sister Jasper, who joined the Church in Seattle in 1954, helps her husband, Frank, run their bed-and-breakfast facility, housing guests in a cabin adjacent their log home on what was once part of a 140-acre homestead. To earn extra money, she restores and sells antique dolls.
Among her many Church assignments over the years, she compiled and authored in the early 1980s A Gathering of Saints in Alaska, a history of the Church in this state. This book, along with a 72-page addition, has been put in the cornerstone of the new temple.
A self-motivated woman, she learned self-reliance through hardship. She had little education when her first husband died in the mid-1950s. She accepted two government welfare checks, then said no more. She took in ironing and cooked for others while she learned computer programming for Boeing Aircraft in Seattle.
"It was a tough year. I remember waking up, lying in a bundle of clothes I'd been folding. I'd been so tired I'd fallen asleep, and I didn't wake up until the next morning."
The work paid off. She became a computer programmer and, today, is president of the board of directors for the Chugach Electric Association.
Another member drawn to Alaska by its beauty is Oren B. Hudson, who, with his wife, Ruth, is a member of the Anchorage 2nd Ward, Anchorage North stake. However, he fell in love with Alaska from the air. Now retired, he was a bush pilot for 50 years, flying people, supplies and mail to outlying villages and towns.
Brother Hudson, who has a warm smile and delightful laugh, has never crashed a plane. But he's come pretty close. He first came to Alaska in 1948 when he flew a new Cessna 170 from Ohio to its new owner in Fairbanks. A foggy, winter night, he recalled, "I couldn't find the airport. There was a hotel and a bridge sticking up through the fog. I looked over and there were airplanes on each side [of what I thought was a runway]. I landed and taxied and here come the people out of the hotel."
He thought they were coming to see the new plane. No, they said, "We've never seen anyone land down here on the river before on wheels!" Brother Hudson looked around and noticed the planes, which were all on skis, were lined up on the frozen river.
Then there's Cora McCary of the Anchorage 14th Ward. She came to Alaska in 1939 with her husband, J.L. McCary, who became the first LDS federal judge in this state. After their marriage in the Salt Lake Temple in 1939, they visited Alaska during the next two summers while Brother McCary — known locally as "Judge McCary" — sold for Utah Woolen Mills. In the fall, they'd return to Utah for him to continue his studies at the University of Utah Law School. They came to Anchorage permanently in 1941.
The name "McCary" is well-known and well-loved here, even among non-LDS. Brother McCary died in 1992, and hundreds attended his funeral. Especially loved by the local LDS Polynesian community, he was given a royal Polynesian tribute at his services.
At the time Brother and Sister McCary moved to Alaska, there were only about 1,600-2,000 people living in Anchorage — "dirt streets, board walks and the whole bit," Sister McCary recalled.
A tall, slender, dignified woman, Sister McCary remembers when the few members — not enough even for a branch at the time — gathered in homes for Church services. When they built their home on the shores of Cook Inlet, they specifically built it with the idea of it being a gathering place for the Saints. During the 1964 Alaska earthquake, their home was the only on the bluff to remain intact. Their home is now shored up with metal bracings in case of a future disaster.
Members of the Church in Anchorage also serve Latter-day Saints in outlying areas where numbers are too few for a local branch. One such is Ed Lindquist, who is president of the Anchorage Bush Branch of the Alaska Anchorage Mission. He communicates with 135 members in 300,000 square miles in western Alaska via letters, telephone and e-mail. He recalls one family traveling from an outlying village by "river taxi," where trucks and pick-ups ride frozen rivers for roads, to bring their son to be ordained to the priesthood by Pres. Lindquist.
This kind of thing, he added, only strengthens one's testimony and cements commitment that "we're here to stay."
