EPISODE V: HOMESTEADING
“Try everything and keep trying everything, even when people tell you you can’t do that here.”
EPISODE NOTES
I never met my Grandma Rosemary, but I think about her often. Over the years, I’ve learned some simple facts about this woman from another era.
She was a mother to my mom and eight others. She tended an orchard and a commercial chicken operation. She was funny, smart and deeply religious. She grew up without running water or indoor plumbing, and she didn’t make it past the eighth grade. And she worked really, really hard. My grandfather tended the fields while she raised kids, baked, mended, quilted, milked the cows, fixed things that were broken.
My own mother didn’t want much to do with that life once she left it. But I’ve always been intrigued by it. There’s a romanticism in the idea of homesteading, doing without, providing for yourself. Of building a little cabin in the woods and having a garden and maybe some animals. But the reality isn’t quite so rosy. It’s downright difficult and clumsy, especially when you have no idea what you’re doing.
When I moved to McCarthy, my mom wondered what Grandma Rosemary would’ve thought. I think she either would’ve been proud or thought I was crazy or likely a little bit of both actually. She certainly didn’t shun technology. She was ecstatic when she got her first microwave, for example. And she didn’t exactly choose her lifestyle, but it did seem to come naturally to her. I try to channel her skill and work ethic. But most of the time, I just flounder.
My grandma Rosemary Siebert and grandpa Joseph Siebert dancing in their kitchen in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.
In the mid-1900s, there was a surge of people heading north to claim land through the federal Homestead Act. If people built a habitable dwelling and lived on their property year-round for three years, they got the land for free.
Here’s Ina Jones, who homesteads with her husband Speck outside of Homer, Alaska.
“So, it provided people moving to Alaska at that time a way to acquire a piece of property through the work of their hands,” lifelong homesteader Ina Jones said. She and her husband Speck run a peony and hay farm outside of Homer, Alaska.
Ina Jones in front of a peony field at Alaska Homestead Peonies, outside of Homer, Alaska. Ina and her husband Speck inherited the property from Speck’s parents, who staked a homestead claim there in 1956. (Erin McKinstry/July 2019).
“And it also kind of taught a stewardship, because you couldn't just come in and hang out for the summer in a tent and then go back to Seattle for the winter,” Jones said. “That way they knew that the people that settled Alaska in the early days had a desire to be here long term.”
McCarthy and the surrounding area has its own history of homesteading and small-scale farming. When the miners poured in in the early 1900s, homesteaders came too. I try to imagine the small farms that once operated in my neighborhood when I’m driving down our road surrounded by forested lots. Some of those used to be fields.
But nowadays, there’s a lot less of that going on. It’s easier to get in and out for supplies, and Costco’s often a more affordable and less time-consuming option. You can spend your time homesteading, so you don’t have to buy as much stuff from the outside. Or you can spend your time working, so you have more money to buy stuff from the outside. Most people choose the latter.
Still, there are a few people making a go of it. Like Tenley Nelson, who homesteads in the neighboring community of Strelna, about 50 miles away.
“We were super, super poor when I moved here—we had no money. But we could grow fresh really good food,” Nelson said.
Tenley Nelson carries a watering can to feed her chickens at Wood Frog Farm in Strelna, Alaska. (Erin McKinstry/October 2019)
The last homesteading claim in the United States was processed in 1986, and things have changed a lot since then, Tenley said. She and her husband live a different lifestyle than his grandparents, who they inherited the land from.
“That generation has started to die out and those homesteads have been subdivided and there's a lot more of people with little cabins instead of that homesteading mentality of growing your own stuff, so it’s opened up a market,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot of people that aren’t providing for themselves, but because of all the media about organic foods and stuff, there’s an interest and a demand for it now.”
So, Tenley isn’t just growing food for her family. She’s also selling some of her produce to cover her operating costs.
Wood Frog Farm in August 2019. The hot, dry summer meant certain things did really well and others that normally thrive, suffered. (Erin McKinstry)
On this episode, we’ll touch on an important piece of agriculture in Alaska: the legacy of homesteading and how it’s changed with the times. The harsh climate, extra expenses and nutrient-lacking soils mean some of that is a lot harder than it was for my Grandma Rosemary back in the Midwest. On episode five, we’ll meet two women who’ve proved up for the challenge. We’ll talk about climate change, subsistence, peonies, land access and so much more.
Listen to the episode to hear that story. Also, watch for a bonus photo essay of Rita Jo Shoultz, who started the first commercial peony farm in the state of Alaska.
Music from Sam McKinstry: All the World is All of Us / Music from Blue Dot Sessions: Closer, Greyleaf Willow, Home Home at Last, Luper, Lakeside Path, Sage the Hunter / Podington Bear: Dry Air Artwork from Ian Gyori / Funding from a Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Grant / Featured in this episode: Ina & Speck Jones, Alaska Homestead Peony, and Tenley Nelson, Wood Frog Farm