Pastor Harvey Fiskeaux and family

Brief History

Nome was built along the Bering Sea, on the south coast of the Seward Peninsula, facing Norton Sound. It lies 539 air miles northwest of Anchorage, a 75-minute flight. It lies 102 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and 161 miles east of Russia.

Malemiut, Kauweramiut and Unalikmiut Eskimos have occupied the Seward Peninsula historically, with a well-developed culture adapted to the environment. Around 1870 to 1880, the caribou declined on the Peninsula and the Eskimos changed their diets.

Gold discoveries in the Nome area had been reported as far back as 1865 by Western Union surveyors seeking a route across Alaska and the Bering Sea. But it was a $1500-to-the-pan gold strike on tiny Anvil Creek in 1898 by three Scandinavians, Jafet Lindeberg, Erik Lindblom, and John Brynteson, that brought thousands of miners to the "Eldorado." Almost overnight an isolated stretch of tundra fronting the beach was transformed into a tent-and-log cabin city of 20,000 prospectors, gamblers, claim jumpers, saloon keepers, and prostitutes. The gold-bearing creeks had been almost completely staked, when some entrepreneur discovered the "golden sands of Nome." With nothing more than shovels, buckets, rockers and wheel barrows, thousands of idle miners descended upon the beaches. Two months later the golden sands had yielded one million dollars in gold (at $16 an ounce). A narrow-gauge railroad and telephone line from Nome to Anvil Creek was built in 1900. By 1902 the more easily reached claims were exhausted and large mining companies with better equipment took over the mining operations. Since the first strike on tiny Anvil Creek, Nome's gold fields have yielded $136 million.

The gradual depletion of gold, a major influenza epidemic in 1918, the depression, and finally World War II, each influenced Nome's population. A disastrous fire in 1934 destroyed most of the City.

Pastor Profile

Pastor Fiskeaux was born in Bennettsville, South Carolina.  He has a BA Degree from Hobe Sound Bible College, MA Degree from Aldersgate School of Religion and another MA Degree from Bob Jones University.  He accepted a call to ministry in Alaska in 1978 and joined Covenant ministries in 1990 as pastor of Scammon Bay Covenant.  He moved from Scammon Bay in 1995 to his present position in Nome in 1995.  He transferred his Polar Evangelism ordination in 1998 to the Covenant Church.  He and his wife, Nancy have eight children.