Fun and food for all at the Fair

PALMER — Food, fun and friends are the focus of the Alaska State Fair for locals and tourists alike.

While waiting in line for The Ejection Seat on the Miner’s Loop of the Purple Trail, Alicia Spillman and Sean O’Brien spoke about their past state fair experiences.

O’Brien, an eight-year Alaskan originally from Rhode Island, said he came to Alaska looking for adventure. Spillman, originally from Texas, has joined O’Brien at the fair for the past three years.

Saturday was not their first time waiting to be catapulted into the air aboard a chair tethered to supports by bungee cords, Spillman said, but their first at the Alaska State Fair. It wasn’t so much a matter of tradition, Spillman said — they just decided to enjoy the ride “on a whim,” O’Brien said.

But what the two enjoy the most, they said, is the food.

“I’m normally a healthy eater, so it’s kind of a splurge,” Spillman said.

And while they agreed variety is good, O’Brien said he comes to one fair food in particular, time and again.

“I love the turkey legs,” O’Brien said. “It’s something you don’t get that often.”

The same goes for the fair as a whole for many Alaskans, like the Pulkkinen family and friends from Anchorage. Josephine Pulkkinen, 10, Max Pulkkinen, 7, Malin Henneman, 10, and Jainy Dolata, 11, all go to the Anchorage Montessori School, and have come out to the Mat-Su Valley for the fair for the last few years. The family moved to Alaska in 2011.

Josephine likes the Cliffhanger, she said, and Malin likes the MegaDrop, but Jainy and Max said they just love “everything” about the fair.

Including getting out of school.

The Montessori school doesn’t give students a day off for the fair — Mat-Su Borough School District students will enjoy a “Fair Friday” this week — but many families with children at the school will take a half-day off during fair to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells the event has to offer, said the Pulkkinen children’s mother, Aurorita.

That’s what the family did the Friday before, in the hopes that the fair would be less crowded, she said. It wasn’t.

While crowds are to be expected at any state fair, the Pulkkinens weren’t the only ones who wished there could be a day with fewer people. Former Palmer High School students Tanner Watson and Eric Ace said they like coming to the fair for a change of pace, and to have a difference place to socialize — but not to wait in lines.

“You have to wait in line to park, wait in line to get in, wait in line for food and for rides, then you walk in between people trying not to run over little kids,” Watson said. “It’s terrible.”

Standing near the Alyeska Pipeline Colony Stage on the Red Trail, Watson and Ace said they stopped to watch a hip-hop dancer perform, preferring to observe the few free entertainments at the fair.

For some fairgoers, it’s the free things that end up being the most memorable. Lorraine Stotts, who was up from Spokane, Washington visiting her sister-in-law, Jan, (a longtime volunteer at the Beta Sigma Phi cotton candy vendor), said she most enjoyed the hospitality of people.

“Everyone is so nice,” Lorraine said.

After two days and about six hours at the fair — to which the Washington State Fair “doesn’t even compare,” she said — Lorraine still felt like she hadn’t seen it all.

“I’m in awe of everything,” she said.

Jan, who has come to the fair for the last 14 years, agreed that the Alaska fair has something special — so special that she has to keep coming back.

“Once doesn’t work here,” she said.

Though some may disagree with that statement, seeing a trip to the Alaska State Fair as simply a bucket-list item, that one-time trip may be impactful enough for the memories to last a lifetime.

Tom and Jan Shandera, also from Washington, spent what they figured would be their only day at the fair on Saturday. They had just arrived in Alaska on their first vacation as a retired couple, with a month to pack full of Alaskan adventures.

Sitting on a bench in The Gathering Place, Tom said he was impressed with the Mat-Su Cooperative Extension Service and their helpful information on high-bush cranberries. Jan praised the Alaska birch syrup, which she had never tried or heard of before. The ease with which they were able to navigate the fair, she said, was also appreciated.

But what fascinated them the most, Jan said, was the Alaska Native culture.

While looking at the old fish wheel next to the Gathering Place cabins, Tom said, an elderly Native woman approached to explain what the contraption was. The three got to talking, and the woman told the couple anecdotes from her life — from the subsistence lifestyle to the difficulty of adjusting to life outside of the village at a Palmer boarding school to arguing with modern physicians about traditional remedies.

The stories were unlike anything the couple had seen or heard in their home state, as Washington Native groups are far removed from the spotlight, Tom said.

“It seems like there’s a lot of culture right here with you that we don’t see in Washington,” Jan said.

The Alaska State Fair continues through Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 7).

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.