24. In Great Waters

Metlakhatla in Canada to Port Chester, or New
Metlakhatla, in Alaska, sixty miles away. Mr.
Duncan’s efforts to train his Indians had been ham-
pered by restrictions imposed by his Church and
government. He was offered better opportunities,
sympathetic assistance, and a free hand by the
United States. They also gave him control of an
island on which to shepherd his tribe. He accepted
the offer and the Canadian Methodist mission boat
moved him across. It took Capt. Oliver several
trips, taking as many as 60 loaded canoes in tow at
a time.

The Glad Tidings went everywhere and any-
where along these Pacific shores where it might find
lonely white man or Indian hut. The Indians
called it the ‘‘Come-to-Jesus”’ steamboat. What
hazards to those on board it must have passed
through! What comfort in a thousand ways it
brought to those it could reach! Most of it is un-
recorded save in God’s Book of golden deeds.
In 1903 the Glad Tidings was wrecked in Shushartie
Bay on the northern shore of Vancouver Island.
In 1906 Mr. B. C. Freeman, after seeing the old
boat lying a wreck on the rocks, wrote as follows,
“What life and light she had carried to benighted
Indians and wandering whites! How often had that
cabin rung with praise and thanksgiving as Crosby
and Oliver, with a band of devoted converts,
travelled hither and thither, daring the winter
storms of the Pacific in the little seventy-foot craft,
enduring hardships as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,