After leaving Seward on the Kenai Peninsula, we traveled back through Anchorage and stopped for two nights in Palmer. Just North of Palmer in a beautiful area, we visited the remains of a gold mine. It was opened in 1936 and closed in 1951. We hiked all over the hill where the old mine was. You could see for miles back toward Palmer. Below are the buildings that housed the mess hall, dorms, assay office, and others.
Picture above, is the mine in winter.
Above remains of the old mine. Would love to have seen it when it was running.
The Alaska State Fair was going on in Palmer while we were there. They have a contest every year of the largest cabbages, carrots, kale, etc. The sun shines for so long during the day, these vegetables and fruit grow very large in the short summer season.
How would 127 lb cabbage taste?
During the Depression, FDR offered 200 farming families from the Midwest 40 acres of land around the Palmer area. The thought was to help families out of their poverty and also to develop agriculture in Alaska. They were given a new house, furniture they could order from the Montgomery Ward catalog, and everything they needed to start farming all for a $3000 loan. We were on a tour of one of the Colony houses with these two ladies who were Colony Kids. The older lady came with her parents in 1935, and the younger lady was born in the new colony after her parents arrived. There was a lot of controversy about how successful this project was. 60 families returned to the Midwest after only a short time in Alaska. Others struggled to start farming, but a good percentage of families did stay and started farming.
When the families first arrived in the summer of 1935, they had to live in tents until their houses were built.
Families getting off of the boat and arriving in Alaska.
They even had there own money system. Today these coins are very valuable, just because they're so rare.
This was the Colony house we toured. They had a choice of several models. Not so shabby for $3000 plus a 40 acre farm.
The musk oxen farm near Palmer is one of only three in the world. Our tour guide was a very enthusiastic young lady. She talked about these oxen as if they were her kids. They have around 80 oxen at this farm, and raise them for their wool. But selling the wool isn't enough to support the farm, so they have to rely on donations to keep them going. Musk oxen no longer live in the wild. They were hunted to near extinction during the 1800's.
Above is a pasture where they keep oxen who are mating. Below, we got to feed several of the babies.
Did you know there was a word that started with a "Q" without a "U" following it? This is the downy wool they comb from the oxen. It's very expensive.
We started out from Palmer to Valdez early in the morning. Such a pretty time of the day in the mountains.
I wish we had counted the number of glaciers we saw along the way.
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