“Hospital & Haven: The Life and Work of Grafton and Clara Burke in Northern Alaska”. In 1885, the Presbyterian cleric Sheldon Jackson, who came to Alaska with the intent of evangelizing, recognized the enormous size of the recently purchased territory and saw the futility of trying to usher his church to its every corner. Wishing to bring Christian teachings to the Native population, he devised a plan to divide the lands and peoples into regions, and to cede each one to a different Christian denomination for mission work that would include not only religious teachings, but health care and education as well. In the absence of federal interest, it was the only available means of providing the latter.