Archives West Finding Aid

Reverend Louis H. Pedersen (1867-1939) was a Methodist minister who served congregations in Douglas, Seward and Skagway, Alaska. Pedersen emigrated from Norway as a small child with his young mother and grew up in Astoria, Oregon. He gained his citizenship by serving in the Oregon State Militia, eventually studying for the ministry before marrying a sheriff's daughter, Frances "Fanny" Turner, of Oysterville, Washington. In 1903, the Methodist church sent the couple north to serve as missionaries in Alaska. After a short time in Juneau, the couple arrived in Seward in 1905; Pedersen established the first Methodist church in the barely two-year old town, bringing with him a gospel tent which served as both church and parsonage for that first year. To help support his family and send his children to college, Pedersen took up photography and sold his images to tourists. Often, when steamships docked in Seward, passengers would make their way to the home of "Parson Pete" and place orders for his photographs. Pedersen would print the photographs overnight and have them ready for tourists to take home when they departed the next day. He initialed all of his photographs "LHP." In addition to his work as a minister, photographer and all-around civic booster, Pedersen also drafted the resolution making Alaska Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the formal transfer of the Territory of Alaska from Russia to the United States on October 18, 1867, an official state holiday in 1917. Pedersen Glacier, located on a remote stretch of the Kenai Fords, just west of Seward, was named after him.