Colony Days Kerfuffle Drives Mat-Su Residents to Madness
Alaska’s warring culture warriors have engaged in plenty of absurdist skirmishes over the past couple years, but perhaps none as spectacularly unhinged as the Colony Days Kerfuffle.
In a tiff both exasperating and exhausting, the community of Palmer erupted in indignation last week after the local chamber of commerce announced it would rebrand the 86-year-old celebration as the “Braided River Festival” in what it said was an effort to broaden the festival’s focus.
“We felt it was important to rebrand it to reflect what it has grown into: a celebration of the many aspects of what makes Palmer unique,” chamber executive director Ailis Vann said in a statement that was longer on platitudes than specifics. “A braided river is made up of smaller rivers, creeks, and tributaries that come together to form one large, powerful force. For decades, the Palmer Chamber has also grown into a larger force thanks to the support of our community partners. It also speaks to the natural beauty of the Palmer area, including the Matanuska and Knik Rivers.”
Reaction to the rebrand was immediate and intense, with social media exploding in anger over the alleged erasure of Mat-Su Valley history.
“If I had to put my money somewhere, it would be that the real reason for the change is the woke political ideology that identifies the word “Colony” as rrrrrrracist,” wrote poster “Liberty Belle” on the Mat-Su Who NOT To Use Facebook page. “Palmer doesn’t have monuments…so they are coming for Colony Days. Outrageous!”
Within two days, the post had received nearly 800 comments — mirroring a number of other posts on various online platforms.
Some commenters went so far as to call for prison sentences for chamber of commerce board members.
“Do not fall for these Marxist attempts to divide, attack, create discontent! They must fail! And they always will, as long as people are united, love each other regardless of race or creed, and recognize this utter criminal communist horseshit when they see it!” wrote Andy Johnson in the MatSu Valley Crime Discussion page.
Elected officials jumped at the chance to weigh in against “wokeness,” with perpetually grammar-challenged gubernatorial candidate Charlie Pierce issuing a statement decrying the name change:
“To call “Colony” politically incorrect is a travesty and an insult not only to them, but to all Alaskans. What is next? Eliminate “Settlers? [sic] Frontiersman? Farmers? Alaskans?” Pierce wrote.
“…No politically correct efforts to change our history should be tolerated and to erase the culture of those brave man [sic] and women who settled the Palmer area and MatSu Valley 86 years ago is an affront to all Alaskans.”
Colony Days was founded in the 1930s by a group of mainly Midwestern settlers who relocated Alaska as part of a New Deal program aimed at creating an agricultural colony in the Mat-Su region north of Anchorage. The colony wasn’t particularly successful, with the Valley’s rocky, wind-swept landscape proving more suitable for leaving than tilling. Within five years of their arrival, more than half of the colonists had abandoned the project.
A few did manage to make a go of it, however, and many of their descendants can be found living in the Valley to this day. But while there are a handful of farms still in operation in the Mat-Su, the area is now known mainly as a suburban offshoot of Anchorage, its sprawling terrain covered in single-family homes built mainly over the past three decades.
Although most Mat-Su residents have no connection to the original colonists, the uproar over the name change seems to have struck a nerve with those who believe a rebrand is tantamount to cultural erasure and an affront to their shared identity.
That’s pretty rich, honestly. The colony story itself is a monumental act of revisionist history that bears little resemblance to the actual history of the Upper Cook Inlet region and is in fact a creation myth perpetuated by years of mindless repetition.
As the story goes, the New Deal colonists “founded” the town of Palmer and pioneered agriculture in the region. Both of those suppositions are false. Palmer was in fact established as a trading post more than two decades before the first families arrived to cast lots for their plots of land, and George Palmer had been experimenting with crops in the region since 1900, according to Helen Hegner’s “History of the Matanuska Colony.”
More than 100 families were already living in the region well before the colonists arrived, and they had already established a small but robust agricultural presence in the Valley.
“By 1906, farmers Henry McKinnon and Hiram Mitchell were both producing large gardens near Knik and selling their surplus produce to the miners and villagers. Others settled in the area near present-day Palmer, including pioneer farmers John A. Springer, Adam Werner, W.J. Bogard, M.D. Snodgrass, John Bugge, Jake Metz, Swan Youngquist, Ira Miller, A.J. Swanson, Max Sherrod, and many more. By 1915, there were enough farms in the Valley to support the formation of the Matanuska Farmer’s Association…”
Many of those names grace modern roads in the Mat-Su, an inconvenient fact for those who believe the history of Palmer begins when the colonists arrived in 1935.
Even more problematic for colony defenders is the fact that the entire region was until recently the sovereign territory of the Dena’ina Athabascan people, who have inhabited Upper Cook Inlet for thousands of years. Any celebration of Mat-Su culture that ignores the people on whose land the suburbs now sit is laughable and only serves to suppress the true history of the land and its original inhabitants.
This isn’t to say the contribution of the colonists to Mat-Su culture should be erased. The legacy of farming in the region is undeniable, with the Valley’s famous giant cabbages and pumpkins serving as a testament to the region’s enduring image as Alaska’s (albeit limited) breadbasket. That can still be remembered and celebrated while making room for a broader and more truthful interpretation of the past.
And the chamber’s handling of the rebrand was objectively awful. Rather than engaging with its members and the public to build consensus and compromise, the board simply tried to push through a heavy handed change that was guaranteed to fail. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Mat-Su sentiments had to know that the most MAGAfied region of the state was bound to be massively triggered by anything smelling of “wokeness,” “political correctness” or — worst of all — “cancel culture.”
That the board ignored the realities of the community’s political leanings was incredibly short-sighted, and the seeming secrecy with which the rebrand was rolled out hints that board members thought they could get away with sneaking it under the radar. That’s not just bad policy, it’s terrible public relations strategy.
The board also failed to properly articulate its reasons for a rebrand. In doing so, it allowed the imaginations of the aggrieved to run wild, quickly turning what could have been a productive discussion into an unqualified shit show. By essentially changing the name in the dead of night, the chamber ensured the issue would blow up in their faces.
The board quickly realized its mistake, and after just two days bowed to public pressure and reversed the rebrand. That hasn’t quieted the controversy, however, with bloggers and commenters continuing to pile on against the move and vilifying a board whose only real crime seems to be an overzealous approach to inclusiveness — hardly a capital offense.
According to an Anchorage Daily News story about the controversy, some of those opposed to the name change have even made veiled threats of violence.
“We had several voice mails left on our phones that were saying ‘Watch your back,’” Vann told Daily News reporter Zaz Hollander.
According to the ADN, the name change discussion began two years ago and was an outgrowth of efforts to more fully include members of the local Chickaloon and Knik tribes, who represent the indigenous populations of the region. The rebrand was facilitated by Blueprint Alaska, an Anchorage PR firm.
The fallout from the effort isn’t over. According to multiple sources, three members of the chamber board have resigned due to the uproar over the name change attempt.
It’s hard not to be bemused by the level of vitriol thrown about by the online snowflakes who have been driven to rage by a simple name change. Rebranding the event as the “Braided River Festival” wouldn’t result in any less hot dogs being grilled or any fewer faces painted; in fact, it’s likely the only thing that would be different would be the signage and a renewed emphasis on cultures beyond the colonists. It’s a community fair for crying out loud. The idea that increasing its inclusivity somehow diminishes the contributions made by past residents is reactionary nonsense, and the fact that people are so protective of the colony story above all other histories is reminiscent of the way Americans cling to the enduring myth of the First Thanksgiving.
Folks need to take a deep breath and ask themselves whether they’re truly interested in remembering their history or whether they want to continue clinging to half-truths and legends. If it’s the former, changing the name of the Colony Days Festival may well be warranted, as there is far more to Valley culture than the exploits of a few families during the 1930s and 40s. If it’s the latter, people should ask themselves if it’s really history they’re interested in or if they simply want to preserve the parts of the past that suit them.
Matt Tunseth is an Alaska freelance writer who has previously worked as a journalist for a number of newspapers in the state, including the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, the Anchorage Daily News, the Chugiak-Eagle River Star, the Anchorage Press and the (Kenai) Peninsula Clarion.
