Skagway’s Pius X Mission classified as Federal Indian Boarding School

The Skagway Borough Assembly is about to discuss a proposal to turn its RV park into housing lots, but a new federal designation for the former mission school could complicate the issue. Native land rights and the town’s housing crisis might be at odds.

In July, the former St. Pius X Mission Residential Boarding School for Native Children in Skagway was recognized by the federal government as a Federal Indian Boarding School.  

Pius X, located on what is now Garden City RV Park, operated from 1932-1960 under the direction of the Catholic Church. The Juneau Archdiocese sold the land to the Municipality of Skagway in 2013. 

The Skagway Traditional Council is a sovereign tribal government. They raised concerns at the time that the land should not be sold, but returned to the Tribe according to a federal law that says lands of former boarding schools should go back to Indigenous owners. 

Jamie Bricker is the president of Skagway Traditional Council, or STC, and the granddaughter of a Pius X survivor. She addressed the assembly on Aug. 1. 

“I’ve been thinking long and hard about the conversation that STC started with the municipality about 15 years ago, sharing our story about Pius X and teaching you about the interests we had in the school property,” she says. “And it fell on deaf ears to the majority at this table, repeatedly, and somehow you still think you’ve done your due diligence.” 

Pius X was included in the second volume of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. Bricker and her team have been working to prove that the school met criteria, and trying to locate records for Pius X students. Because of missing documentation, no one knows exactly how many students attended the school. 

A 1940 picture of Pius X pupils shows approximately 70 children. But that year’s census listed 21 mission students. 

What is clearly documented is the sexual abuse that occurred at the school. 

The University of Arizona Archeological Assessment of Pius X outlines some of that mistreatment. Priests often came through the mission to help teach or on sabbatical. According to the report, quote, “at least two of these visiting priests were on the Anchorage list of abusive priests for assault with attempt to rape and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. One of them served time in federal prison before returning to active ministry. It is now officially confirmed by the Dioceses of Anchorage and Juneau that Father [Francis] Cowgill, who served as principal of the school from 1952 to 1959, was a pedophile.” 

The report states that at least one more priest abused children. When older students found out about the abuse of some of the younger children, they took them out of the school and found a temporary safe place for them in town. 

Bricker encouraged listeners to study volume two. It contains first-hand accounts of children who were separated from their families and given haircuts, uniforms and identification numbers. They were not allowed to speak their traditional language or eat traditional food. Many were marched from place to place. 

Bricker pointed out that the report gives suggestions to the U.S. government to help communities heal. 

“Number one is to acknowledge and apologize for wrongdoings,” Bricker says. “Recommendation number five on page 103 is to return former federal Indian boarding school sites.” 

Two Skagway assembly members, Kate Kolodi and Deb Potter, thanked Bricker for her comments. 

Potter said she’s still haunted by the assembly vote that failed last year, which would have set aside half of the mission site for the local tribe. Instead, the assembly voted to reserve two lots to use as a memorial to commemorate Pius X.

“And though I can’t get that land returned to them, what I can do is acknowledge and apologize for the very real generational trauma that has occurred” Potter says. “So I would like to acknowledge and apologize for the pain that they continue to experience.” 

The municipality has plans to turn the RV park into housing. A proposal that the Public Works Committee has been working on is headed to the assembly. It would divide the land into 20 lots for mobile homes and 12 residential lots.  

Borough Manager Brad Ryan said he did not wish to comment on what the federal designation of the mission school site could mean to the future of the RV park. But during a July 31 Public Works meeting he said that Bricker brought the report to his attention earlier that day and he inquired how the Tribe felt. 

“They haven’t digested what that report says yet,” he says. “So that’s really the contact I’ve had at this point.” 

Ryan said he has a printout of the report in his office with a few pages highlighted for any committee members who cared to view the document. 

When selling the property, the Catholic Church signed an indemnity agreement, holding the municipality harmless if anyone, such as Skagway Traditional Council, made a claim. After the Tribe again raised concerns, the municipality ordered a new title search in 2023 which satisfied the assembly enough that they continued discussion of how to dispose of the land. 

The issue of land sovereignty is a controversial subject in Skagway’s narrow valley. During public testimony last August in support of returning half of Garden City land to Skagway Traditional Council, resident Mavis Hendrickson stood up in the audience and shouted, “We paid for it!” 

Hendrickson, the daughter of Skagway pioneers, describes herself as Native Alaskan, meaning she was born in Alaska.  

In that meeting, Assembly member Orion Hanson said that the municipality is still making payments on the land.  

“We continue to pay over $100,000 a year to the Catholic Church,” he says.

For tribal council president Bricker, the mission school is about more than property or financial consideration. She repeated a quote in the report by U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. 

“I believe we are born with an obligation. We’re not just people here on this earth taking up space. We have an obligation to honor the legacy of our ancestors, so they didn’t starve in vain, so that they didn’t die in vain, so that they weren’t ripped away from their mother’s arms in vain.” 

The report and any resulting issues are not on any municipal meeting agendas at this time.