Day in Palmer--July 21

It began raining last night and rained all night long and into this morning. It sounded wonderful on the roof. We left at 8:45 this morning to go ride share to the Palmer Visitor Center/ Museum. The docent gave us a good run down on Palmer. Alaska is the most seismically-active state in the U.S. and contains 10% of the Earth's identified volcanoes. The rugged Chugach Range encloses the Mat-Su Valley to the south. To the north is the Alaska Range(Mt. McKinley) is only one of the peaks and the Talkeetna Range partially divides the Matanuska Valley from the Susitna this Mat-Su. Due to where Palmer is located the winds blow and they blow in a lot of top soil. The docent says he has 6' of good top soil on his land from being blown in. Their winter weather is not as extreme as the interior of Alaska partially due to their proximity to the water of the Knik Arm. The proximity to the North Pole causes the Mat-Su Valley's hours of daylight to vary greatly. In June there is an avg. of 19 hours of light per day while in Dec. the avg. daylight hours are only 5.

Gold was discovered near what became Knik near here in 1897 but in 1898 an expedition came up this valley and coal was discovered and became of interest. The Alaska Central Railroad in 1904 began construction since it had access to top grade coal for their engines but it fell thru until Alaska became a territory in 1912. Along with the construction came homesteaders who settle in the valley and begin some agriculture but the big change occurred in 1935 during the Great Depression. FDR proposed a relocation effort to move destitute Midwestern farmers onto more profitable lands around the U.S. Two places of the many others in the lower 48 produced 2 well known people. One was an Arkansas boy named Johnny Cash and a Tennessee boy named Elvis--both came from one of these communities. I digress.From the beginning of this Don Irwin who was director of the experimental station at Matanuska,AK was involved with the criteria and selection process. He was involved with FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) and that is how Alaska became involved. Part of the criteria was age (25-40), hardy pioneer type farmers with Scandinavian backgrounds from Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota( due to weather adjustments). 204 families were chosen to receive 40-80 acre tracts(by a draw), a house, barn, well and outbuildings on a $30,000 dollar, 30 year loan. This gave the people hope where they had no hope before this opportunity. This was truly the beginning of Palmer. Go read about this program on the internet. It was very interesting. I never knew about this. Then outside the museum they had the most beautiful gardens combining flowers, trees, berry bushes, vegetables so we could see what is grown up here. They only have a very limited growing season but long days during that time so things grow fast and large up here.

We then went down to Colony House Museum which is one of the original homes built during the Matanuska Colony Project in 1935. There were 5 different house plans they could choose. This was 3 bedroom, 2 story with living room, kitchen, and bathroom, It was very nice, but they first lived in tents because the houses were not built yet--actually nothing was built except the railroad they came up on and the land was not cleared for farming. But we toured this house and it was very nice--furnished with all original furniture from different families. The docent was very nice and informative.

We went across the street to The Inn Cafe for our lunch which was included. We had a wonderful tomato basil bisque soup, a salad with a huge sandwich of ham, cheese,lettuce, tomato and onion on a croissant followed by ice cream with raspberry sauce (umm!!) and iced tea. One of the better lunches we have had and the service was great.

Bob went back to run errands and make phone calls while Marvin, Dee and I went to Eklutna,AK. It is hardly even a community although they say there are about 377 people residing there. It is an Athabascan village and when the Russians came here in 1741 mostly for the furs rather than settlement, they occupied the land for 126 yrs. The main influence you see now is the Russian Orthodox Churches throughout Alaska. In most places the native cultures readily accepted their teaching because it made sense to them. Located there is a small historical park which contains St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church(still having services),a hand-built Siberian prayer chapel and traditional spirit houses or grave houses. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of fishermen. There was a priest there who told us about the area and when we went into the church also explained the icons and whatever else we asked. He must have just been burning the incense in the church because it was real strong so Dee and Marvin missed some of that explanation. When someone from the native culture dies they bury them and then put a blanket over the grave to keep them warm because they believe that the spirit of that person stays around for a year. That is also why they build small little houses on the grave to house the spirit. Many are deteriorating but that is what is supposed to happen because the spirit has moved on. They are also painted different colors to match the colors scheme of the family. As we left Dee asked several questions as did I to better understand the Orthodox faith in comparison to our own. The basics are very much alike but they have a lot more ritual. One very interesting thing was that when the first group of priests came over, except for one area which misunderstood the priest but later did understand, the people readily accepted their teachings and one of the explanations the natives gave to them was that they expected them. They had visions or dreams of men in black carrying a black book coming to them. I so wish Bob could have been there because he comes from the Orthodox faith originally.

We then drove back to Wasilla--home of Sarah Palin and drove around a little but never found the Iditarod Home base and museum. I guess that will be for next time we come. We had our briefing and then later tonight we will have a campfire and do somores and doughboys over the fire. That's all folks.