Day 57 & 58 - Palmer, AK

During the great depression of the 1920's and 1930's, the U.S. federal govt instituted a program to relocate destitute Midwest farm families to the Alaska Matanuska Valley. Some 203 families from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were selected to participate in this program to establish an agriculture-based community. It was called the "Matanuska Colony Project". Each family was given 40 acres of land, a new house, barn, animals, and equipment to support a family farm. A central community center including a store, school, railroad depot, churches, and support facilities were built. All this became the foundation for the city of Palmer.

Today, Palmer is an agricultural community. Many descendants of these "colonists" continue to live and farm this very area. The Matanuska Valley was carved by glaciers thousands of years ago. The fine, fertile silt left behind by the receding glaciers along with the long daylight hours makes the area perfect for growing world record vegetables. We got to see the fields upon fields of lush hay and green vegetables. However, our focus was finding some four legged creatures.

I know we have seen musk oxen before but none of us could pass up the chance to see them again. This time we can get a little closer. How this musk ox farm came to be! In 1954, John Teal captured three musk ox calves in the Canadian Northwest Territories. He transported them to his family farm in Vermont where he devoted the next 10 years proving they could be tamed, raised, and bred in captivity. Also their qiviut could be collected in useful quantities.

In 1965, Teal established the first large scale musk ox farm in Fairbanks (I talked about this in an earlier blog). What I didn't say earlier was in 1976 Teal move the entire herd to a 640 acre property in Unalakleet, Alaska.

Following Teal's death in 1982 the Musk Ox Development Corporation assumed responsibility for the health and welfare of the herd. Relocating the herd was the first priority. The entire herd was brought to the Palmer region because of the availability of suitable property. And these are the descendants of that original herd.  

Beautiful farm with mountains all around

Curly, Larry, and Petunia

I found this tour so much better than the one in Fairbanks. You could get allot closer to the musk ox. Each musk ox is human imprinted from birth. The focus of this farm is totally different than the one in Fairbanks.

The second place we visited was The Reindeer Farm in the town of The Butte. The farm is set on 200 acres of land which has been in the Williams family for three generations. It was part of the Matanuska Colony Project that I talked about earlier. There passion for animals took them away from crops to raising reindeers - 120 of them.

After a quick introduction to the reindeer and a few do's and don'ts we were allowed to go into the coral and feed them. It was so much fun.

Baby Rocky Mountain Elk