Living on Thin Ice. Steven C. Dinero

in Arctic Village, and the second woman is in Venetie, their last name is Roberts, and first one is here and the last name its Tritt, and here I know by this time, the last name is Sam. And the fourth woman didn’t have no kids. And these are the original people of Venetie and Arctic Village—one Gwich’in, one people. (I. Tritt 1987a, edited lightly in order to preserve the tone and verbiage used as spoken)

      Indeed, Albert Tritt’s ability to draw together the teachings of the Christian Church with a subsistence lifestyle in such a remote Arctic region (later to be perpetuated by his children and grandchildren) and to guide the people to a better understanding of their place within the physical and spiritual worlds is considerably significant. His conversion seemed to follow a model straight out of the scriptures that he had so strongly embraced.

      McKennan (1965: 87) writes that Tritt related an exceptional story to him about the events that unfolded during this transitional process of conversion. After returning from a Christmas service in Fort Yukon, Tritt went home to Arctic Village with his mind filled with questions about Christianity. “For forty days I wandered crying in the wilderness,” he told McKennan, trying to understand the Bible. During this quest for understanding, in true apocalyptic fashion, he was struck by a blinding flash of light and fell in a faint. When Tritt recovered consciousness, he was a new man who knew his vocation lay in bringing the Gospels to his people together with reading and writing. As Mackenzie explains, Tritt’s learning continued throughout extended stays in Fort Yukon. He initially served as a lay reader in Arctic Village, where he earned a stipend of $10 per month, and was ordained as a deacon in 1925 (1985: 112, 116). The Episcopalian Church’s use of community members as unordained lay readers in Native regions was not unprecedented; on the contrary, such individuals were extremely helpful to the Church’s evangelizing efforts, given their familiarity with the indigenous cultures and languages of the communities they served.

      The level of Tritt’s Christian learning during this time is noted by John Fredson, himself a Native missionary, in his documentation of “A Trip to Arctic Village” in December 1922 (Fredson and Sapir 1982). As I discuss in greater depth in one of my earlier works, Tritt’s reputation continued to spread far and wide, though not everyone within Arctic Village was enamored with his directives (Dinero 2003a). Village elders Chief Esaias and especially Chief Christian had been recognized as the first official “chiefs” in the village who acquired their status via wealth and position as “big” men (see also Stern 2005: 33). They oftentimes served as Tritt’s primary political rivals in the community, seeking to counter and question his ideas and motives, and to draw the villagers’ loyalties in a more pragmatic-leaning direction. Clearly, Tritt was highly intelligent and gifted, but he was a man of the cloth with ideas that struck some as fantastic if not difficult to fully comprehend; White outsiders, in the meantime, only further perpetuated a narrative that suggested his exceptionality was freakish rather than uniquely gifted (McKennan 1965).

      Nevertheless, others invited Fredson and Dr. Grafton Burke, a medical missionary from Fort Yukon, to travel to Arctic Village. Notably, Burke would be the first White man to ever visit Arctic Village (Mac­kenzie 1985: 116), ushering in a new era of exposure to Outside values, attitudes, and beliefs. Fredson tells of his meeting a young man whose name was “Drit” (that is, “Tritt”) upon arriving at the village in the winter of 1922. Tritt told Fredson that he wanted to know more about the Bible. As Fredson explains: “Until long past midnight he asked us questions about the Bible. As he always studied it, he knew quite a bit about it” (Fredson and Sapir 1982: 41–43).

      By this time, Tritt had been studying the Bible for several years but would seek to further his understanding of its meanings throughout his lifetime. An ordained priest, Burke led the services during the fiveday stay at the village, during which a wedding took place and a child was baptized. Overall, Burke and Fredson later noted the high level of participation from adults and children alike, further evidence of Tritt’s teaching efforts and talents among the congregation. Indeed, the level of Christian observance in the community attracted the attention of Archdeacon F.B. Drane, who took over Hudson Stuck’s duties upon his death in 1920. As a result, Drane also visited Arctic Village in 1923. Drane’s reaction was similarly filled with praise, only further confirming the contention that Tritt was a highly motivated, intense figure.

      This intensity was reflected in McKennan’s journals, written a decade later, in which he describes a man so strongly committed to his quest: “Verily he is half-mad, a mystic and a seer of the type that in another age and another culture would have been a St. Augustine or a St. Francis, or possibly a Cromwell. After my visit with him I think I know why the natives of this village decamped so suddenly after his arrival” (Mishler and Simeone 2006: 177).