Fall festival; Reindeer Farm owners create event to help others enjoy autumn

PALMER — The Fall Festival has one more Saturday left this year.

Denise Hardy, the current owner of the Reindeer Farm, started the festival, which concludes this year on Oct. 19, after she moved back from Washington with her husband. Hardy noticed Alaska lacked many of the autumn qualities and activities that she grew to love during her time in Washington. Hardy missed the plentiful pumpkin patches and corn mazes from the Pacific Northwest and wanted her kids to experience that joy in Alaska.

When she moved back to help her parents run the farm, Hardy noticed the vast acres of land they had and thought of hosting a festival with the best fall activities. Hardy sought to create “a family feel and a fall feel” through the festival. So, Hardy bought hundreds of pumpkins, created a hay maze and organized many activities for families across the Valley to enjoy.

One of the most difficult to organize activities of the festival is the pumpkin patch. This year, the Reindeer Farm bought 380 pumpkins. Before the festival opens each Saturday, they arrange the many pumpkins in the field and haul back the remaining unsold pumpkins after it closes each day, according to Hardy.

The other difficult yet rewarding event is the child-friendly haunted house called the Spooky Walk. Each year they spend two months to create a new layout of the walk and improve the décor to offer a ghostly experience that children can tolerate. According to Hardy, the Spooky Walk has improved considerably since the first year they did it. It took them the entire summer to empty and clean out the then storage barn full of farm supplies, and then to construct temporary walls for the walk.

Along with the main events, this year’s festival attracted the Husky Burger and the Palmer High Music Booster Club to vend. There were plenty of activities for children to enjoy like the pony ride, the hay bale maze, potato launching and a reindeer tour. The Carhartt Brothers performed live music and upheld their tradition of performing each year at the festival.

“We weren’t really in it to make money,” Hardy said.

Just three weekends out of the year, the festival can generate about one-third of a year’s feed cost, according to Hardy. Attendance contributes to most of the revenue from the festival, and attendance varies on how the weather acts. All of the money earned from the festival buys feed and anything else the animals need.

Hardy said they were “blessed with the weather on Saturday, especially after a week of rain.” Even though it was sunny this past Saturday, the October temperatures can be quite chilly, so Hardy urges those who come to dress for cold weather.

Initially, Hardy’s father, Tom Williams, the founder of the Reindeer Farm, desired to raise reindeer for meat, but the farm eventually moved towards tourism and live-animal sales. Hardy carefully selects buyers and ensures that the reindeer will be treated with care wherever they end up.

The Reindeer Farm plans to open the Spooky Walk again this month for Halloween. It will be open Oct. 25, Oct. 26 and Halloween night on Oct. 31 from 5 to 7 p.m. Hardy said they will make the walk kid friendly, but from 7 to 9 p.m. they will create a scarier experience.

For more information about the Reindeer Farm, call 907-745-4000 or email them at reindeertours@gmail.com.

Anthony Jones is a senior at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School and a Frontiersman intern for the 2019-2020 school year.