Valley offers many riches from the past, present

The residents of the Matanuska Valley have seen many strange and interesting sights, but one that not many have seen… is a vacillated moose. Mark Owen, who has taught history and social sciences at Glacier View School for 26 years, is introducing his multi-grade high school class to our state’s brief but rich history this year during his Alaska Studies course. He began his class with a bang and organized several field trips to different places around the Mat-Su Valley within the first two weeks of school.

As an element of his ongoing education, this year Mr. Owen enrolled in a UAA summer session and signed up for “Ag in the Classroom.” He was inspired and decided to incorporate what he learned into his Alaska Studies curriculum.

“I learned a lot, and I realized that agriculture is not a thing of the past. It’s still important in the Valley.”

He took his Mat Valley history theme one step further during the field trips by also exploring the region, early colony life, and the Valley’s short but significant mining era.

To showcase the important role agriculture has played in the economy, the class visited the Havemeister Dairy and Pyrah’s Pioneer Peak Farm on

Aug. 26, both of which have been in operation since the early days of the colony. Highlights of these locales were the hay-baling demonstration by Mr. Havemeister and, of course, the delectable, fresh-picked vegetables from Pyrah’s fields.

On Aug. 28, Mr. Owen’s students once again piled into the yellow school bus for the 60-mile drive down the Glenn Highway to the Palmer

Center for Sustainable Living (PSCL). It was here where the Glacier View students first beheld the sight of a fistulated moose.

“Fistulation” is a process by which a researcher incises a circular opening in the side of a ruminant such as a cow, moose, or caribou. In this way, they can observe what the animal ingests, and gauge its digestive health. Several students offered a list of foods they may “insert” as a researcher: Cheetos, yogurt, a NOS energy drink, and, being adolescents privy to the literary device irony, moose-burger.

During the second half of the day, the students visited the Colony House in Palmer. Built in 1936, it is one of the oldest buildings in the Valley. It was restored in 1994 and is open for public viewing. The field trips culminated Aug. 31 when the class immersed itself in the Valley’s mining mystique with visits to the Alpine Historical Park in Sutton, and Independence Mine in Hatcher Pass, which are also both open to the public and a “must-see” for Valley residents and visitors alike. Both of these sites were active mining operations during the 1930s and ‘40s. In turn, both were shut down by the government when the Navy changed from the use of coal in their seagoing vessels to oil; and through the reallocation of jobs to areas benefiting the war effort during WWII.

Most of the areas the class visited are well-known landmarks and played vital roles in forging the Valley into the diverse and productive region that residents of the Valley are fortunate to occupy. Some operations lasted years, some decades, and a few are still in operation today.

Many people believe the past is the past, and that day-to-day life should focus on the present. However, humans are a product of their

past and their present, and to forget either one robs one of his or her true identity. Where some may see crumbling buildings fit only to be

torn down to make room for cloned subdivisions, others look a little deeper, and there they behold the story of people who came to this cold,

inhospitable land to make a better life for future generations. That is the true spirit of the Matanuska Valley and its residents should be

proud to be part of it.

Christopher Martin is a junior at Glacier View School.