Do it now—it won’t be there when you come back.
Palmer, Alaska started out as an experiment in the 1930s, sponsored by President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal relief agency. The Depression, the dust bowl, and mass unemployment left many families destitute all across the nation. In 1935 The Matanuska Valley Colony was established as one of several “colonies” within the United States (the others were established in Florida, Arkansas, and Georgia).
President Roosevelt offered 203 families from the hardest-hit areas of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan a chance to start over in Alaska. These states were chosen for the project because it was felt they most closely resembled the climate in Alaska, and they had some of the highest percentages of people on assistance programs.
These chosen families were given 40 acres, a small house, a barn and a second chance at life. Many of them failed and returned to the Lower 48. Many of the barns and the farm houses have survived.
There are several old barns that I like. One of them sets on a hill over looking Palmer and the Knik River, it’s pained white and has a blue tin roof. Another barn is now home to dozens of dairy cattle. It has undergone several additions and expansions—the cows I’m sure love it.
My favorite barn, however, is now a pile of rotten timbers, weathered with age and neglect. I first spotted it driving home last winter. The hay field in front of it was covered in snow, trees, used as a windbreak, lead my eye towards the hill and this magnificent old barn. It was grey, leaning precariously towards the field, its doors ajar. What a great photo! But I was in a hurry to get home.
Spring arrived, the hay field became a brilliant green, a perfect photo opportunity for color contrasts. “I’ll have to remember to bring my camera the next time I head into town.”
Spring turned to summer, and summer was busy. Yesterday on my way into town I looked to my left before the stop sign, and it was gone!
Today, it made the front page of the paper, “Tumble-down barn.” This barn withstood winds that howled down from the glacier, gale-force winds, for nearly 70 years. She housed livestock and hay; she protected new-born calves and chickens. Her demise was probably because she had one layer too many of tar paper on her roof instead of a lighter weight tin roof. She was just too tired to stand anymore.
I’m sorry I missed the shot, and I’m lucky my husband Jim is willing to stop and take the shot that I missed.
