C.L. Andrews, born in 1862, spent the first two years of his life on a farm at Ashtabula, Ohio. His parents then took him westward to Oregon where they settled in Linn County near Brownsville. He attended United Brethren College and graduated in Business in 1882. He spent the next 15 years between Seattle and parts of Oregon working at various jobs: county clerk, auditor, and farmer. In 1897 Andrews came to Alaska with the Luigi expedition as a bearer or camp hand to climb Mt. St. Elias on the Alaska-Canada border. From that time until 1940 he lived, worked, and photographed in Alaska. He spent one year in Sitka, five years in Skagway during the gold rush, then 1904-1906 in Eagle on the Yukon as a customs agent, and 1922-1929 in the Arctic working for the School and Reindeer Service.

Andrews wrote several books and numerous articles on Alaska, and edited and published a tabloid The Eskimo from 1936 until 1947. Andrews moved back to the “mainland” in 1940 and lived with his sister in Eugene, Oregon until 1948 when he died at the age of 85.