This is the third part of a three part interview with researcher Pete Hubbard regarding his exploration of the Father Hubbard collection held in Archives & Special Collections. You can find all three parts with the tag Pete Hubbard Interview 2019.
On Lessons and Core Values
On this last section of the interview, we discuss some of Father Hubbard’s core values that shaped his personal and professional life.
From talking with Pete, it became apparent that Father Hubbard was a humble man, as he never hesitated to find help in others when need be. “He networked and had sponsors. He was a good student of life and he knew the value of the insights of others like boat captains, airplane pilots, his religious superiors, local missionaries, trappers, and especially the Eskimo tribal elders with centuries of wisdom who showed Father Hubbard how to survive in the north country,” Pete explained.
“After 20 years of expeditions, it was Father Hubbard who was asked advice from the top military generals in WW2 and the Cold War on how to guard against an enemy invasion by way of Alaska. He assured them there was little chance for an enemy to advance under such difficult conditions. He served as a military Chaplain in Alaska, traveling to Adak at the tip of the Aleutians, and with the Strategic Air Patrol along our northern border.”
To carry out expeditions like these while maintaining faith and a positive disposition takes a unique character. As Pete said, Father Hubbard met adversity with perseverance. “He was a steadfast man who endured cold and blizzards, hunger and fatigue, near disaster in planes and boats, but he always kept his Faith of what he could accomplish and that God was by his side, come what may,” Pete explained. “He made a 1000 mile dog sled run in winter to visit the isolated missions along the Yukon River… He explored the interior glaciers of Kodiak Island, trekked through active volcanoes, wintered on King island with Father Lafortune and the Inuit, and traversed the unexplored Taku Glacier near Juneau. I’m sure he felt fear, but courage prevailed… He worked tirelessly to bring some joy and entertainment of an Alaskan adventure to millions experiencing the Depression,” which he was able to do by traveling the country and delivering lectures illustrated by his photographs.
According to Pete, perhaps the period of time Father Hubbard revealed the highest degree of perseverance was during a stroke he suffered in 1955. “After doing so much in life it was very difficult to adjust to being less able. He never gave up, even after several more strokes, and at 72 was still hoping to get back to Alaska for one more trip to the state he so loved,” Pete said. “Perhaps the most touching letter in the collection was one Father Hubbard wrote to his older brother John, who was a mining engineer, where he described his experience of being stricken and taken back by the stroke episode, but how his faith would carry him through. He has been a fabulous role model for me.”
Above images document researcher Pete Hubbard’s own personal explorations of Mount Whitney. Courtesy of Pete’s personal collection.
While this concludes our three part interview with Pete about Father Hubbard, there is much more exploring to be done our collection of Father Hubbard’s personal papers. The Archives & Special Collections Reading Room is open 10 am – 7 pm Monday through Friday, and we invite you to contact us to make an appointment to view the collection yourself. If you aren’t able to visit in person, you can view the Digital Collections we have created of some of Father Hubbard’s photographs: Hubbard King Island Digital Collection, and Hubbard Ketchican Digital Collection. In addition, there are several books that Father Hubbard authored, including Mush, You Malemutes, Cradle of the Storms, and Alaskan Odyssey.
Header image: Fr. Hubbard and crew in the cold on King Island.
Photo courtesy of the SCU Digital Collections.