UAS student takes her research national
A University of Alaska-Southeast senior traveled to Tucson, Ariz. last month to present her research on the Haines Mission to a meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory.
Debbie McBride, who was born and raised in Juneau, researched and wrote a paper on the first five years of the Haines Mission, which was founded by Presbyterian missionaries in 1881.
One area of focus was the reason Tlingits around Haines requested a mission. While spiritual reasons played a role, McBride said, "there's quite a bit of evidence there were a lot of practical reasons for it."
In her paper, McBride wrote that Chilkat Tlingits, while on a trade mission, observed the economic advantage the Fort Simpson mission brought to that community.
For example, Christian Tlingits at Fort Simpson received building materials, and McBride's paper cited evidence that the Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingit expected the same once the mission was established.
In addition, having a mission increased knowledge of the English language and trading customs, which would aid the Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingits' fur trade.
McBride's research is part of a larger project headed by former UAS professor Thomas Thornton. That project, a collaboration among UAS, the National Park Service and the Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingit, was initiated by the park service to better represent the history of the Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingit at Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park.
McBride said Thornton asked her to become a research assistant with the project last school year. During fall 2000 she did archival research, and last spring she transcribed taped interviews with tribal elders.
When Thornton asked if she would be interested in contributing research to the report - and an anthropology/religion class required a term paper at the same time - the Haines Mission topic was a natural fit.
McBride said she traveled to the conference and presented her paper at Thornton's request.
"As intimidating as it was, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up," she said. "I learned a tremendous amount."
Thornton said McBride's research included subtleties of the Tlingit-missionary relationship that have often been overlooked.
"She was able to uncover a lot of good information and to frame her analysis in such a way as to highlight the complex dynamics of the interrelationships between Tlingits and the early missionaries, which are too often oversimplified in the literature," Thornton said by e-mail.
McBride will be graduating from UAS in December. She said her experience with the project has led her to consider going to graduate school.
Andrew Krueger can be reached at akrueger@juneauempire.com