SEASON II: Introduction

SEASON II: INTRODUCTION

“We may be the breadbasket of the nation someday...I’d like to be on the forefront of that.”

— Scott Mugrage, Mugrage Hay & Cattle, Delta Junction, Alaska

EPISODE NOTES

It’s a grey morning in early March. I’m curled up by the window inside my cabin in McCarthy, Alaska, miles and miles from a grocery store or a restaurant or many other markers of modern American life. Across the room, the wood stove pumps.

We’ve had the coldest winter since I first moved here five years ago. Some community members who’ve been here far longer said they hadn’t seen those kinds of sustained cold temperatures in a long time.

It’s been refreshing, in a way. Especially after a particularly hot summer that felt a lot like climate change in action. It was scary. Wildfires hit places that are usually soaked in rain. Things felt on edge here, like they might explode at any moment.

Outside the cabin, tiny snow flurries dot the air. A couple feet of packed snow covers the forest floor, but the spruce trees stand naked, a reminder that things aren’t exactly back to normal. The trees shed the snow from their branches a few weeks ago after a warm spell. The river broke too.

The glacially-fed Kennicott River has been breaking mid-winter for the last few years. (Erin McKinstry / February 2020)

The glacier’s been doing that the last few years, letting go of a rush of water in the middle of winter. The frozen rivers are no longer reliable highways, which can spell trouble for subsistence activities. Things are changing all over Alaska. And that means good and bad things for all kinds of industries, including agriculture.

Mike Emers has been farming outside Fairbanks since 1997.

“Yeah, it's a big gamble farming,” Emers said. “but it’s gotten less so with the changing climate.”

Mike Emers stands in a field of marijuana at his farm outside Fairbanks, Alaska. He transitioned from growing vegetables to growing pot following legalization in the state. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

On season two of Out Here: Alaska agriculture and what climate change could mean for its future. Maybe, you didn’t even know you could grow things in Alaska. Here you’ll meet some of the innovative people giving it a go.

Growing here is no easy task. To make space for gardening, most people have to clear their own land and mix their own soil. I have no earthworms, no garden supply store, no tap to turn to water the garden in a mercilessly hot and dry July. 

And I’m just doing it for myself. What if you’re chasing a farming dream here, that somewhat romantic notion that we can work the land locally and provide for our community instead of using massive amounts of energy acquiring food from far away places? In Alaska, that means investing time and money into a business venture that’s risky in places with better infrastructure and a more hospitable climate. Starting out can be a bit nerve-racking, said Sally Boisvert, who farms outside the southeast Alaska town of Haines.

 “It was a challenge at first thinking, oh my gosh, I’ve done all this work clearing this land, will anyone want any vegetables?” Boisvert said.

Sally Boisvert and her two young children enter one of several high tunnels on her farm outside of Haines, Alaska. During the summer months, Boisvert runs the farm alone while her husband fishes. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

And then there’s the knowledge. I didn’t grow up with a big vegetable patch in the backyard, and I didn’t grow up in Alaska. Neither did Boisvert, although she did come to the state with agricultural experience. Still, it was a challenge.

“Then the challenge became, okay, let’s figure out how to grow things at 60 degrees North latitude, which is very different from 45 degrees North, which is where I’d been farming previously in Maine,” she said.

Yes, the long summer days can mean giant heads of cabbage and a fast turnover for certain vegetables. But Alaska’s growing season is also short and full of unpredictable and extreme weather patterns. That’s something that only seems to have gotten worse in recent years, says farmer Tenley Nelson, who lives about 50 miles down the road from me.

 “I think it’s the unstableness of the weather that’s the most frustrating. Too much rain, then no rain at all. Too hot,” Nelson said.

Tenley Nelson feeds her chickens at her farm in Strelna, Alaska. Nelson began advertising her produce for the first time last year. (Erin McKinstry / September 2019)

But despite the challenges—known and unknown--I’m not alone in my gardening adventures here. It’s almost a given that you have some sort of garden in and around McCarthy, even if it’s just full of greens. There’s no big grocery store, and no local farmer’s market either.

“You can't buy organic garlic anywhere. You can't drive anywhere within five hours and get that product,” Nelson said. “But I can grow it and share it a little bit.”

Some of Tenley Nelson’s garlic harvest for the summer of 2019. (Erin McKinstry / September 2019)

Some places in Alaska aren’t as removed from food supply chains, but most food is still coming up on a barge from faraway places. And that leads to something that gets talked about quite a bit in Alaska: food security. It’s something many of the farmers I talked to brought up.

Alaskans are an independent bunch. Many provide for themselves whenever they can. The Alaska Native tradition of subsistence is strong: hunting, fishing, foraging, berry picking. The homesteading tradition is strong too: raising chickens, growing and canning food, making a weekly loaf of sourdough, that kind of stuff.

And then there’s the tradition of farming, where people feed themselves and their neighbors. It’s never been huge compared to regions like the Midwest, but it has been persistent. Some farmers even dream of feeding the rest of the country someday, like Scott Mugrage, a cattle rancher in Delta Junction, the once planned hub of a barley export industry.

 “We may be the breadbasket of nation someday,” Mugrage said. “With the storm challenges and things going on in the lower 48 anymore, you know, and we very well have the potential to do that here, I think. And so, I’d like to be on the forefront of that.”

Scott Mugrage looks out on a field at his cattle ranch and farm near Delta Junction, Alaska. Mugrage and his son moved up from the Midwest after finding their land on the internet. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

Welcome to Season Two of Out Here, a podcast about life in rural Alaska. Here you’ll get some of the complicated story of Alaska agriculture from the perspective of Alaska farmers. It’s a story full of failure and innovation, one that defies stereotypes and looks quite a bit different from the mono-crop agriculture that dominates the lower 48.

We’ll fly to the Arctic to meet an Iñupiat woman who’s mixing Western agriculture with Native traditions. We’ll meet an apple grower, a cattle rancher and a seed grower. And we’ll talk about where we’ve been, where we’re going and what climate change could mean for farming here. 

 Maybe, by the end of it, you’ll want to plant something too.

Stay tuned and stay persistent. 

Music from Blue Dot Sessions: Vibrant Canopy, Moon Bicycle Theme, Vela-Vela, Wistful / Featuring Mike Emers of Rosie Creek Farm, Kevin Irvin of Sundog Orchard, Rainey Nasuġraq Hopson of Gardens in the Arctic, Leah Wagner of Foundroot, Ina Jones of Alaska Homestead Peonies, Sally Boisvert of Four Winds Farm, Tenley Nelson of Wood Frog Farm, Scott & Justin Mugrage of Mugrage Cattle & Hay, Brian Olson of Alaska Berries, Pete & Lynn Mayo of Spinach Creek Farm and Rita Jo Shoultz of Alaska Perfect Peony / Financial Assistance from the Rasmuson Foundation

II.I CLEARING LAND

EPISODE I: CLEARING LAND

“It was a challenge at first thinking, I’ve done all this work clearing this land. Will anyone want any vegetables?”

— Sally Boisvert, Four Winds Farm, Mosquito Lake, AK

EPISODE NOTES

Last summer, I had a pretty difficult gardening moment. It was just before summer solstice, so my plants had been in the ground for a few weeks already.  I got home from work after an 11-hour shift. It was dark, and I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was make dinner and go to bed. But, the responsible voice in the back of my head was like: you need to go water your garden. 

So, down to the garden I went, and at first, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.  Probably because it was dark. But when I got to the cabbage and broccoli, I stopped because the tops were missing, the soil was disturbed and several of the tender transplants had been uprooted from their homes and discarded like unwanted toys. I started crying. I couldn’t help it. 

I’d nursed the plants from seed since April, helping them overcome a mysterious illness and dancing them around the room for maximum sunlight. And now, all of that time and energy was for nothing. Most of them were damaged beyond repair. I built a fence in the spring to prevent this exact scenario. But what I didn’t think about is that a moose, with all of its gangly grace, could hop right over the top. 

The sinking feeling lasted through the night, but I realized pretty quickly there wasn’t much I could do but keep trying. All of this to say that carving cultivation space out here in the wilderness takes persistence and will inevitably break your heart at some point.

“If you're a farmer, you’re a continual optimist or you wouldn't be in it,” says lifelong homesteader and farmer Ina Jones. “Nobody goes into the winter thinking, oh, next year's gonna be worse. Otherwise, you're just gonna discourage yourself, and you’re just gonna throw your hands up and go bury your head in the sand.”

Ina Jones at her peony farm outside of Homer, Alaska. (Erin McKinstry / July 2020)

On episode one, Clearing Land, we’ll meet two beginning farmers using all of the persistence and optimism they can muster to clear their own space and nudge a budding local food movement.

Where I grew up in the Midwest, farmers laid the foundation for an agricultural industry centuries ago. Nowadays, most beginning farmers just have to find farmland rather than doing the tedious work of turning forest to field.

But not so in the southeast Alaska town of Haines, where we’ll travel on this episode. The remote, end-of-the-road town is nestled between the ocean and dramatic, snow-capped peaks. It’s really beautiful, but that also means there’s a limited amount of land there. Most of what is available has to be cleared and turned into fertile ground.

There is a small history of farming in Haines that dates back to the homesteading days. It was once the strawberry capital of Alaska. But things have changed since then. Our globally-connected food system no longer has to rely on local production.

When farmer Sally Boisvert moved to Haines in 2004, she didn’t find much of agricultural scene at all.

“When originally, you know, I wanted to become a farmer someday, I thought I’d be in a place with a tradition of farming and other farmers to collaborate with,” Boisvert said. “It’s kind of like, just, figure it out.”

Sally Boisvert shows off one of the high tunnels on her farm near Haines, Alaska. When Sally and her husband bought the land for Four Winds Farm, it was covered in second-growth spruce and cottonwood. They had to clear the land themselves. “it did start as a little hole in the forest,” she said. (Erin McKinstry / August 2020)

On this episode, we’ll talk with Sally and farmer Leah Wagner about starting from scratch, like really from scratch. We’ll hear the lessons farming teaches about the natural world—for children and adults. And we’ll learn about the challenges of farming in a place without a strong agricultural tradition.

“One of the biggest problems is that there’s a lack of infrastructure and a lack of access,” Wagner said.

Listen to the episode to hear more. For more photos, head here.

Leah Wagner and her husband Nick Schlosstein own Foundroot, a seed company and market garden in Haines, Alaska. She and her husband moved to Haines to start growing seeds for the company. (Erin McKinstry / August 2020)

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Music from Blue Dot Sessions: Moon Bicycle Theme, Jog to the Water, Bedroll, Feathersoft / Featuring Ina Jones of Alaska Homestead Peonies, Sally Boisvert of Four Winds Farm and Leah Wagner of Foundroot / Financial Assistance from the Rasmuson Foundation / Episode Artwork from Ian Gyori

II.II THE MIXING ZONE

EPISODE II: THE MIXING ZONE

“It’s not just agriculture. It’s culture, culture. It’s like a mesh between our culture and agriculture.”

— Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson

EPISODE NOTES

Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson points out a bumblebee inside her high tunnel. Metal poles support a layer of greenhouse plastic that towers high above our heads. Rainey looks around with a smile. 

“This is my favorite place in the world,” she laughs.

It’s early in the morning, but the air inside is already stuffy, like a sauna. Most of her plants are loving the added warmth and protection that the high tunnel adds—although this summer’s unusual heat has stressed some of them out. Her garden beds made of salvaged siding brim with vegetables. Potatoes and herbs spill over pots. Rainey pulls back leaves to show off one of her more ambitious experiments—a pumpkin that’s just starting to ripen.

Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson pulls back leaves to reveal a ripening pumpkin. The plant is one of many experiments she’s growing in the Arctic. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

Sure, in a lot of places an orange pumpkin is nothing special. But we’re nowhere near most places. By the time most Americans are heading out to the pumpkin patch for Halloween hayrides, this place will have snow on the ground and seven hours of daylight. Rainey and her project Gardens in the Arctic live in Anaktuvuk Pass, almost 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle. There isn’t exactly a lot of farming going on here. But Rainey Hopson is not the kind of person who cares about what’s normal.

“I grew up in an environment where weird wasn’t weird,” she said.

Why not grow things in the Arctic, she thought? There wasn’t much out there about how to do it. So, she decided to do it on her own. She scrounged together some dirt, threw some seeds in the ground and… 

“Of course, it failed miserably. I mean they literally just sprouted and died,” Rainey said. “And then my stubbornness kicked in. And I was like, okay, now you just kinda made me mad. And I’m gonna make things grow here.” 

Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson gives a tour of her high tunnel in August 2019. Some of her plants suffered from the summer’s uncharacteristic heat. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

Anaktuvuk is connected to the rest of Alaska by plane. The nearly two-hour flight from Fairbanks follows rivers, mountains and tundra but not many markers of people. Gates of the Arctic National Park and the Brooks Range surround the Nunamiut Village. It’s out there. 

“Anaktuvuk Pass has about 300 or so people on a good day when everybody's here,” Rainey said. “It’s just this tiny village nestles in the mountains…every mountain has a name and a personality.”

The village was established in the late 50s by a few nomadic families.

“They came together to have a post office and a school and to offer things to their kids that they didn’t have,” Rainey said.

Living off the land is not a strange thing in Anaktuvuk Pass. The founding elders of the community chose the valley because of caribou, a huge source of food to this day. Each year, the caribou leave the coast and head to the Brooks Range for the winter. Normally, they pass through the area, but the patterns of that migration are shifting, and climate change might have something to do with it. 

“It probably hasn’t been seen for four or five years. And that stresses people out because people who rely on the caribou for meat, you know, they’re not gonna have as much meat,” Rainey said.

Snow fences on the outskirts of Anaktuvuk Pass. Normally, caribou migrate through the area, but the patterns of that migration are shifting, making many in the village worried about food security. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

Rainey’s not trying to replace subsistence activities. She just thinks that hunting, gathering and farming can all live in one basket. Together, they can secure nutritious, affordable food for her village in the face of a changing climate. 

On episode two, the Mixing Zone, we’ll talk about climate change, food security, the Inupiat connection to plants and so much more. We’ll hear all about Rainey’s project and the agricultural revolution she’s plotting up there in the Arctic.   

“I want there to be like 30 of Rainey—weird Rainey agriculture people—all across the Slope, so it’s not just me. You know I want it to be normal,” she said. 

Part I: How It All Began

Rainey grew up in a tiny village on the coast of northwest Alaska. In the summer, she’d visit her grandmother in California.  

“Her entire lot where their house was, (was) covered in plants. Any space she could fill she did,” Rainey said. “And so my summers were spent hauling chicken poo and killing slugs and snails. It was familiar to me this process of growing things and eating things.”

But it wasn’t until she moved to Anaktuvuk Pass where her husband’s from that she started thinking about growing things for herself. 

“When I moved here, I quit smoking cigarettes, and all of the sudden I could taste things, and I could smell things and food became three-dimensional. And then all of the sudden I started feeling more healthy, and I could climb upstairs without getting out of breath. And it felt amazing and it felt like a super power,” she said.

She started talking to health care workers about what else she could do to become healthier. They suggested eating healthier food. Most of her life she’d eaten microwave meals.

“There’s not a lot of variety that's available at the stores, especially in really rural villages like this. There’s frozen veggies, canned veggies and very little fresh veggies or fruit. Usually it’s like potatoes or onions or things that have a really long shelf life,” Rainey said.

When healthy, fresh food is available, it’s expensive . If she wanted to eat healthier, she thought, why not just grow food herself in her own backyard.

“I thought why can't I grow things here in the Arctic?” Rainey said.

There weren’t many resources. She read old books and looked to other parts of the world like Norway and Siberia. She faced all kinds of challenges, from a short growing season to the expense of shipping in supplies to poor soil quality.

After a lot of trial and error, she ended up with backyard kale and chard all summer long. And her neighbors started to notice. 

“And, of course, everybody was kinda like what are you doing back there? They would pass by and see it. And so we would eventually start trading with our neighbors. They’d give us salmon, we’d give them lettuce,” she said. “And they were like, well, if you’re doing that, can we do that?”

So, she started researching an easy way for people to grow things.

“I found these grow boxes. You just plug everything in pretty much and pour water into a hole every three or four days, and things will grow,” she said.

Rainey called her Native Corporation for help with funding. It’s called Arctic North Slope Regional Corporation or ASRC. Many Alaska Natives are shareholders in corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. 

“They thought I was a little crazy, and they were just like, nobody grows veggies in the Arctic. It’s barely summer ever in the Arctic. And I didn't get the funding, and being super stubborn, I said, well, I told these people I was gonna help them,” she said.

She started a GoFundMe page and raised $4000. That got five families started gardening.

A community member’s garden that Rainey helped install. Part of Gardens in the Arctic is helping people in community grow food for themselves. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

But Rainey didn’t stop there. Some of families decided that they didn’t want to grow their own food, but they still wanted to eat healthier.

“I was trying to figure out how can I grow a larger amount of food for people and also be learning about what will grow here and what won't,” she said.

She started researching high tunnels and greenhouses. And she got back in touch with ASRC to help with funding.

“‘Cause they stopped thinking I was crazy. They’re very good about supporting projects like this and supporting their people. So, they got on board, and that’s how we got the high tunnel,” Rainey said.

Nowadays, there are three parts to Rainey’s business. She sets up grow boxes and gardens for families in the community, so they can grow their own food for free. She grows food and sells it. And she uses the high tunnel as an experiment. 

“I’m trying to figure out what will grow here and what tastes good. The taste changes from growing here in this 24-hour light,” she said.

She’s using that information to create a new agricultural model. 

Back inside Rainey’s high tunnel, we don’t just find Western plants like zucchini and kale. There are traditional ones too. Rainey’s daughter picks a plant I don’t recognize. It has long, pointed leaves. It’s called Stinkweed, but it smells really good, despite its name. Rainey uses it to repel pests in the high tunnel. They burn it in the summer to repel mosquitos.

It’s all part of the unique version of agriculture that Rainey’s created and that she’s trying to spread across her region.

Rainey’s five-year-old daughter picks stinkweed. Rainey uses the traditional plant to repel pests in her high tunnel. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

Part II: A NEW MODEL

Rainey eyes a raven as we head behind her house to meet her chickens. It’s just one of many creatures she has to keep an eye on. Her chicken dog Pumpkin barks in the background.

Wilderness surrounds Anaktuvuk Pass, but within the village, things are pretty close together. It’s one of the challenges of gardening and farming here—finding space to do it. Rainey put her high tunnel on someone else’s property on the other side of town. Her own backyard is just big enough for a small garden and chicken coop.  

Rainey’s chicks live inside a small, insulated box in her backyard. She uses chicken poo in her garden as fertilizer. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

After we visit with the chickens, we head inside Rainey’s house and with coffee in hand, sit down to chat.

Here’s an edited version of our conversation:

EM: Do you consider yourself a farmer?

NRH: No, I don’t know what to call myself. That’s why I kind of fumble. People are like, what do you do? And I’m like Inupiaq agriculture something. Because it’s not just agriculture. It’s culture, culture. It’s like a mesh between our culture and agriculture. 

EM: It’s like a new model that doesn’t necessarily fit the traditional vocabulary of farming?  

NRH: Yeah, because when we think of farming, we think of red barns and chickens and cows and straw hats and overalls, and that’s not what it’s gonna look like up here at all. And it’s predominantly a male industry and up here, we’re finding that it’s mostly women that get into it. 

EM: I’ve noticed that. Why do you think that is?

NRH: The men are the ones that usually go out and are gone for days. Depending on the season—duck season, sheep season, fur season, caribou season. They’re running around, literally running around. It's the women that tend to stay closer to home and have more time and ability to care for baby plants. 

EM: What are some ways that you would say the model of agriculture that’s going to work here differs from that more Western model?

NRH: In our culture and in communities, we tend to take the value first and then build around that value. I’m not focusing on making a lot of money. It’s not my goal to make tons of money and become a millionaire from growing strawberries. My goal is to provide a service for my community and to make my people better—health-wise, mentally, and just to give them an option that they didn't have before. And I guess I could just lean more toward making money and get super technical and plan everything out perfectly and only focus on like three crops. There’s ways to do it, but I think with this model it's more focused around realizing that 50 percent of my product is going to be given away to elders. That’s just what I do. And that’s just part of our culture first, it’s our values first and then the model kinda builds itself around it. I think that's the difference is our starting point 

EM: What’s been the reaction in the community to your project? 

NRH: At first it was a lot of confusion. It's not a “normal,” Inupiaq, Native thing to be gardening or to be involved in agriculture. In our tradition, we had 1000s of years of relationships with plants and feeding plants and caring for plants and walking to plants, you know, we had this connection and then we lost it when we stopped being nomadic. So that was the Initial reaction was just, that’s very weird, you’re growing alien vegetables. A lot of people here are not familiar with zucchini and kale and stuff like that because they don't ship them here. They don’t have a really long shelf life, so they’ve never been exposed to those kinds of vegetables. And then I started cooking things, and I’d give away a lot of free things, and it’s slowly catching on that it’s not odd and it’s becoming normal, not weird. So I’m really happy about that. That’s a goal of mine. 

EM: Do you use food from the high tunnel in traditional dishes ever? 

NRH: Yes, nonstop constantly. I like mixing it because it kinda puts a new spin on old stuff. Because people have this vision of old-timey, Inupiaq food of being not as tasty or survival food. That really irks me. And so it’s like this can be a modern thing too. I mean back in the day, the old-timey carrots weren’t sexy and cool until you do something cool with it like caramelize it. You can do all kinds of things with food. And I think that’s really important to bring that forward into now. I really encourage people to be like, okay, what does it mean to be Inupiaq now in this day and age. These are our values, but what does that mean now. What does that look like. 

EM: Was there knowledge that you had learned from Inupiaq culture and from your relationship to plants there that you then transferred to growing things in the high tunnel? 

NRH: I just realized that part of the beginning story of this whole thing was I actually was talking to somebody here. One of the original elders here, she used to bury potatoes along the creeks up north and then she’d come back in fall and dig ‘em up and get like 100s of pounds of potatoes. I thought that was fascinating because that was a long time ago and a very traditional native woman, and she was growing potatoes.

But that’s where it originated from. It’s just this mishmash of all this information. I work a lot with traditional plants, and I think of how can it be used parallel in agriculture. For example, stinkweed is a good insect repellent to keep aphids out of the high tunnel. 

I talked with a woman, her mom at her cabin would would transplant stinkweed and medicinal plants to her cabin and then she would feed these plants. And what she would feed them is—they call it pudding—but it’s the partially digested contents of a caribou stomach. It’s green, it’s kind of smelly, vinegary, but it’s all broken down and available with enzymes. And she said she just stuck that into the ground and these plants that are normally two-feet tall would grow six-feet tall, seven-feet tall. And I was like, how can I use that in agriculture? There’s a perfect resource right there because we live off caribou, we don't eat the innards anymore. This stuff pops up all the time. But yeah, there’s a lot of parallels and a lot of things to be learned from both sides I think. 

EM: You talked about your community’s relationship to plants and the history there and how it’s evolved over time—I wondered if you wouldn’t mind talking about that a little bit more. You had mentioned that nowadays people don’t think of the plant relationship, but historically it was there. 

NRH: Yeah, I mean if you want to go back in history, I think it started with the generation that was taken when they were very young and shipped to residential schools. They have a memory of living off the land and of plants and vegetables, but there’s a huge gap in their knowledge, so when they came back, that knowledge pretty much was starting to fade away.

So traditionally, way, way back in the day, right around the time of us meeting Western culture, we relied more heavily on plants from the land and roots and berries than we do now. And there’s this perception of in our culture that we’re meat eaters. Literally, they call Eskimos, which I guess in the language means meat eaters. We kinda bought into it a little bit and forgot that there was this part of our culture that was centered around plants, not only for food or medicine, but just utility for everyday things.

We had this relationship with them that I thought was pretty interesting because people didn’t realize what it meant. We would pull the plants that we didn’t want that were competing for food, and we would leave behind fish skins and fish bones, or you would always make sure you left something behind. If you took a plant, you left something behind to replace that food you moved. And so, in a way, you could think of it as an early type of agriculture. And so getting back to that being okay and something that we actually talk about I think is really important. 

EM: When you talk to the elders in the community, do they see what you’re doing as carrying on a tradition or are they kind of like, oh, but you’re growing lettuce, you’re not going and gathering traditional plants?

NRH: I think part of the boundaries that I’m trying to break through is this idea that we always have to be doing the same thing for 1000s of years and part of that is recognizing our own history. We used to eat mammoth. Our historians and our elders remember recipes--how to cook a mammoth, how to cut a mammoth, how to divvy up a mammoth, how to kill a mammoth. And it's still passed down, generation after generation, even though it's been something like 4,000 years since we actually hunted mammoth. I look at it as the people that hunted mammoth were Inupiaq but after the mammoth disappeared, they were still Inupiaq.

Our talent and our Inupiaqness, our nativeness, is tied to adaptability and being able to survive and even thrive in an environment because we are very adjustable, and we conquer whatever we're given.  

EM: Do you think that a warming or a changing climate has impacted your growing abilities at all or? 

NRH: Yes. Definitely, definitely, yes. And I know I haven’t been growing that long. But, there was kind of like a stableness in the first few years and then everything kind of just went haywire and to the extremes. Not only with plants and heat and heat stress and sunburn and all that kind of stuff, but also, insects, we’re getting fluctuations in insect populations. You know, when I first started this in my own backyard garden, I would go back there and some evenings it would literally be humming with just 1000s of insects. And that doesn't happen anymore, even outside, and in the high tunnel. We don’t nearly get as much pollinators as we used to. We get slugs and invasive species of slug.

Animals are behaving differently too. And plants move and are moving.

I keep my eye on plants coming from the south. We have cottonwood coming up, trees are actually up here now, and a lot of them don't survive, but there’s maybe a four-year-old cottonwood out here. Which indicates that the permafrost layer has receded enough where it can have a good root system. Everything’s kind of shifting and we’re kind of trying to shift along with it. 

EM: You mentioned that access to healthy fruits and vegetables and things in your community is challenging. Why is that a challenge? 

NRH: So, in the villages everything comes in on a plane. Sometimes your produce is going to be sitting at the airport for a very long time. So it has to be able to sit on shelf or box for a long period of time and so that limits you on what you could ship to a village. So they’re not appetizing, they’re not nutrient dense. They don’t pick things of how healthy it is. And it’s extremely expensive because they have to go on this monstrous journey and pay per pound in an airplane. So, I remember one winter I got really desperate and paid I think it was 12 dollars for like a one pound cabbage. It was insane. But I really wanted a cabbage. I was like, I need something green, and I love cabbages. So I paid it, but it was very painful to pay it. And sometimes it’s cheaper to buy a box of heat-and-eat chicken 

EM: Do you see a future for agriculture in the arctic, in some capacity? 

NRH: I do. I think it'll change. It might not look anything like I’m making it look right now, and I think that’s great. I think it should change and grow and morph into whatever is needed at the time. I'm not really determined to make it exactly how I think it should look ‘cause that’s, you know, that’s not how our culture rolls. That’s not our values. It’s more of just how is it serving the community. How is it serving our culture. By promoting greens and eating healthier, we are also promoting learning plants from the land at the same time and just making people get to know plants again.

You know, who knows what my daughter’s gonna do with all this. I’m kinda excited to see. She might really be into hydroponics which would be weird. But it might look completely different in 20 years. And that’s fine with me.

EM: Does she enjoy working with you? 

NRH: Yeah, not only does she know more Western plants, but she knows traditional plants too, and she can identify them already, and she knows how to pick them and how to treat them and all the stuff that goes with traditional Native plants and she also knows how to treat and eat and prepare and wash carrots and kale and sugar snap peas.  

EM: And how old is she? 

NRH: She’s five years old (laughing). But she’s grown up… You know, I’m dragging her with me everywhere I go. Whatever I’m doing, she’s doing so. 

EM: Do you have plans for the future of the Gardens in the Arctic project. Dreams, goals, hopes, next steps? 

NRH: One of my goals is to have more of me. I want there to be like 30 of Rainey, weird Rainey agriculture people, all across the Slope, so it’s not just me. You know, I want it to be normal. I want people to have their favorite type of kale or even just with traditional foods. I want people to be more self-aware of what we're putting in our bodies. I think I’m aiming for healthier, healthier population, definitely. Dreams. 

Anaktuvuk Pass is a small village of around 300 people. The Nunamiut community is surrounded by Gates of the Arctic National Park in the Brooks Range. (Erin McKinstry / August 2019)

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Music from Blue Dot Sessions: Moon Bicycle Theme, Campfire Rounds, Hickory Interlude, Kallaloe, Rapids / Featuring Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson of Gardens in the Arctic and elder Louisa Kakianaaq Riley / Financial Assistance from the Rasmuson Foundation / Episode Artwork from Ian Gyori

II.III THE BREADBASKET

EPISODE III: THE BREADBASKET

“There’s so much potential for agriculture here, but there’s so little agriculture.”

— Scott Mugrage, Mugrage Hay & Cattle, Delta Junction, AK

EPISODE NOTES

When I think of Alaska, I think of wilderness. Probably like most people. Snow-capped peaks, rugged glaciated landscapes, boreal forests. I don’t think of the open cropland of my Midwestern roots.  

The forest that surrounds my cabin feels untouched and wild. But in reality, somebody probably homesteaded here 100 years ago. Alaska is full of wilderness, but there’s also a long history of cultivation.  

I’m always surprised when parts of the state transport me to that Midwestern landscape of my youth. I’ve seen hay bales in open pasture. Flat fields of cover crops, tilled soil and irrigation equipment. Cattle roaming and munching on grass.  

Smoke from a wildfire rises in the distance above Mugrage Hay & Cattle. The farm and ranch is located in Delta Junction, Alaska. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

There are places where wind whips through fields of barley. Like the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, which opened more than a century ago. Its 260-acres are a lab for the grand experiment of Alaskan agriculture.  

“It looks like a farm. It changes as the season goes. We cut hay, we harvest the grain. The fields change. It’s just like any other farm,” farm manager Alan Tonne says. 

Farm manager Alan Tonne and University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher and professor Mingchu Zhang discuss cover crop trials at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm. The Farm opened in 1906 to test crops suitable for Alaska. (Erin McKinstry / June 2019)

He and University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Mingchu Zhang take me through a field of crops in various stages of growth. We see barley, wheat, sunflowers, canola. They’re the kinds of crops that are usually associated with the industrial agriculture of the lower 48, not so much Alaska.  

Mingchu points to a stand of short stalks. Some are still green, but in June, others are already turning brown.  

"Here is the trial to select hard, red spring wheat that [is] suitable for Alaska,” he says.

A few Alaska farmers grow wheat on a small scale, but it’s tricky. Mingchu’s working with a breeder to develop a variety that can be grown on a large-scale during Alaska’s short season and that meets quality standards. Grain growing is of particular interest to those looking to increase Alaska’s food security, he says. Because, you can’t live on just Alaska-grown potatoes.  

“If you want to eat the potato every day…that would be the easy solution,” he said. “But [it] may not be good health, especially for children. Children need proteins. [It’s] also hard to use the potato to feed the animals.”

In contrast grains can be milled for flour and baking. You can provide essential proteins and feed animals.

Professor and researcher Mingchu Zhang stops for a photo at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm. He does everything from soil testing to teaching classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to fertilizer recommendations for peony farms. (Erin McKinstry / June 2019)

So far on season two, we’ve talked with people who are farming on a pretty small scale. Their operations are diversified, and they’re not looking to export their produce outside of their region. 

But that’s not the whole story of Alaskan agriculture. The state has more land and a lower population density than any other. Dreams to clear swaths of it, feed the state and export crops have come and gone over the years. On episode three, The Breadbasket, we’ll hear more about the history of those ambitions, the obstacles they’ve faced and what climate change could mean for their future.

Cattle congregate in a field at Scott Mugrage’s farm and ranch in Delta Junction. He and his son keep between 650 and 850 head of cattle and farm around 2300 acres. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

Then, we’ll meet a cattle rancher and farmer who’s doing his best to keep that dream alive.

"My goal’s not to be the biggest cattle producer in the state of Alaska. My goal is to change the way Alaska views agriculture,” Scott Mugrage of Mugrage Hay & Cattle says. “And make people more aware of its existence and its quality.”

Listen to the episode to hear more, and head here to see more photos.

Farmer and rancher Scott Mugrage looks out at one of his fields. He and his son farm 2300 acres. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

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Music: All the World is All of Us by Sam McKinstry / Lament of the Old Sourdough by Sam Dunham, sung by Paul Roseland (sourced from the Library of Congress) / Building the Sled & Glinting Giant by Blue Dot Sessions / Featuring: Alan Tonne & Mingchu Zhang of the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, Scott & Justin Mugrage of Mugrage Hay & Cattle / Background information from Phil Kaspari, Agriculture Agent at Cooperative Extension in Delta Junction & articles & videos, including: Sustainable Agriculture for Alaska and the Circumpolar North: Part I: Development & Status of Northern Agriculture & Food Security, Alaska’s State-Funded Agricultural Projects and Policy - Have They Been a Success?, Bison Depredation on Grain Fields in Interior Alaska, Why Do We Farm in Alaska?, Farming in the 49th, The Alaska Review, Homesteading in Alaska/Matanuska Dairy, Fireside Chat 8, On Farmers & Laborers / Financial Assistance from the Rasmuson Foundation / Episode Artwork from Ian Gyori

II.IV A GREEN EVOLUTION

EPISODE IV: A GREEN EVOLUTION

“It’s a big gamble, farming, but it’s gotten less so with the changing climate. It’s definitely a boon to agriculture up here. ”

— Mike Emers, Rosie Creek Farm, near Fairbanks, Alaska

EPISODE NOTES

I’m driving down a bumpy dirt road without a sure sign that I’m headed in the right direction. When I turned off the main road, there was no street name and no GPS directions. And now, I’m a little lost and running late.

The road narrows as I head deeper into a spruce forest. Finally, I reach its end and pull into a narrow parking spot. A small sign for Rosie Creek Farm assures me I am in the right place. It’s decorated with friendly lettering, a dragonfly and sunflowers. It feels pretty welcoming, except there’s also a tall metal fence, a security camera and a posted warning in red lettering: “Restricted Access Area. All visitors must be accompanied by authorized personnel.” 

The entrance to Rosie Creek Farm. The security camera and gate are just two of the investments Mike Emers had to make when he switched from vegetables to pot. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

Then, a tiny Australian Shepherd bounds toward the fence accompanied by his owner, Mike Emers. Mike is the authorized personnel I need to enter this highly-secured space. 

He opens the gate and gestures me inside a small building. I sign a guest book and put on a visitor’s pass. It feels a little more like visiting a prison than a farm. But that’s because Mike’s not growing food. 

He’s growing marijuana. 

All of the weed at Rosie Creek Farm is grown outdoors. Mike Emers grows everything from seed and is developing strains specifically suited for his climate. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

“You can see all the cameras around here, that’s just a little piece of the puzzle. Every single plant has a tag on it with a barcode,” Mike says. “Every single gram of plant material has to be accounted for.”

On episode four, A Green Evolution, we’re heading in a different direction toward one of Alaska’s niche markets. We’ll look inside a commercial outdoor marijuana operation.

“I tell people if people valued food as much as they value this crop, we’d still be growing food,” Mike said.

We’ll hear about Mike’s evolution from ecologist to vegetable farmer to pot grower. Then, we’ll talk about how he’s seen Alaska’s agricultural scene evolve in the 22-ish years since he started farming. And, of course, we’ll hear his thoughts on how climate change is influencing his work.

“It’s a big gamble, farming, but it’s gotten less so with a changing climate,” Mike said. “It’s definitely a boon to agriculture up here.”

Mike Emers stands in a field of marijuana at his farm outside Fairbanks, Alaska. He transitioned from growing vegetables to pot following legalization in the state. (Erin McKinstry / July 2019)

Listen to the episode to hear more and check out this bonus post about Pete & Lynn Mayo of Spinach Creek Farm. They helped inspire Mike to make the jump to farming full-time back in 1997.

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Music from Sam McKinstry: All the World is All of Us / Music from Blue Dot Sessions: Convoy Lines, Gondola Blue, Basecamp, Rapids, Kirkus Interlude / Artwork from Ian Gyori / Funding from a Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Grant / Featured in this episode: Mike Emers of Rosie Creek Farm

II.V HOMESTEADING

EPISODE V: HOMESTEADING

“Try everything and keep trying everything, even when people tell you you can’t do that here.”

— Tenley Nelson, Wood Frog Farm, Strelna, Alaska

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.

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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

I.V LIVING WITH THE WILD

EPISODE V: LIVING WITH THE WILD

“I think the more that you’re connected with your surroundings and the resources around you, the more that you’re interested in conserving them.”

— KRISTIN LINK

EPISODE NOTES

In the middle of the country's largest national park, people live with animals large and small, and they also live with the weather. In a place like McCarthy, the outside creeps in.

Because you can't even go to the bathroom without having to venture outside.

That makes climate change more obvious and impactful. It means people use the resources around them to survive. And it means most people want to live more of a subsistence lifestyle. Whether they actually do is a different story.

On this episode of Out Here, hear how living with the wild makes you more aware of your natural surroundings, hear how this community of transplants is struggling to live off the land for a variety of reasons and hear what it's really like living with grizzly bears.

"You can't leave your cooler with the ham on the front porch in August when the bears are cruising around, " Stephens Harper said. He's the lead law enforcement ranger in the area for the national park. And he's also a community member.

"Nobody wants to be the cop of your neighbor," he said.

In a community of individuals where there are no city ordinances, no local government and no real law enforcement to solve the problem, you have to be the one to walk over and tell your neighbor to take the ham off the porch.

Or that bear just might come on your porch, push in your window and make a big old mess.

Animal tracks by the Kennicott River

My summertime garden

A storm rolls in over the Chugach Mountains

Music from Galen Huckins and Blue Dot Sessions  / Ultima Thule, Glinting Giant, Kallaloe, Decompression, Snow Crop, The Big Ten, Gondola Blues, When in the West / Episode artwork from Ian Gyori  / Financial Assistance from the Duffy Fund and the University of Missouri / Guidance and support from Scott Swafford, Sara Shahriari and Dr. Cristina Mislan / Featured in this episode: Karla Freivalds, Malcolm Vance, Stephens Harper, Laurie Rowland, Gary Green, Kristin Link, Mark Vail, Ian Gyori, Greg Runyan, David Rowland, Greg Fensterman and Ali Towers

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