Hudson Stuck (November 4, 1863[1] – October 10, 1920) was a British native who became an Episcopal priest, social reformer and mountain climber in the United States.

With Harry P. Karstens, he co-led the first expedition to successfully climb Denali (Mount McKinley) in June 1913, via the South Summit.

Moving to Alaska in 1904, he served as Archdeacon of the Yukon, acting as a missionary for the church and a proponent of "muscular Christianity".

[2] It was at an all-time high in the South around the turn of the century, which was also the period when state legislatures were passing legislation and constitutions that disfranchised blacks and many poor whites.

Under the title Archdeacon of the Yukon and the Arctic, with a territory of 250,000 square miles, Stuck traveled between the scattered parishes and missions by dogsled and boat as well as foot and snowshoe.

[2] In his first year, Stuck established a church, mission and hospital at Fairbanks, the new boomtown filling up with miners and associated hangers on.

The small hospital treated epidemics of meningitis and typhoid fever, as well as pneumonia common in the North.

They founded numerous missions in the Tanana Valley over the next decade: at Nenana (St. Mark's Mission and Tortella School at Nenana, the school in 1907), St. Barnabas at Chena Native Village, St. Luke's at Salcha, and St. Timothy's at Tanacross (near Tok, formerly known as the Tanana Crossing).

[3] To reach the scattered populations of miners and other frontiersmen, Stuck started the Church Periodical Club.

Other members were Walter Harper and Robert G. Tatum, both 21, and two student volunteers from the mission school, John Fredson and Esaias George.

Fredson, then 14, acted as their base camp manager, hunting caribou and Dall sheep to keep them supplied with food.

These measurements, with others taken at Fort Gibbon and Valdez, were reduced by C. E. Griffin, Topographic Engineer of the United States Geological Survey, to produce an elevation for Denali of 20,384 feet.

[6] The tent-pole was used for a moment as a flagstaff while Tatum hoisted a little United States flag he had patiently and skillfully constructed in our camps below out of two silk handkerchiefs and the cover of a sewing-bag.

[5] When the party returned to base camp, Stuck sent a messenger to Fairbanks to announce their success in reaching the peak of the mountain.

For instance, John Fredson was the first Alaska Native to finish high school and graduate from college.

Walter Harper was accepted at medical school in Philadelphia, but died en route when his ship sank off the coast of Alaska.