MIGRATION MEMOIR

MAT-SU — Though the story centers mostly on what happened after the journey ended rather than the journey itself, George Harbeson Jr. said he’s happy his book has won recognition as a migration story.

The Bay Area Independent Publishers Association recently selected “Homesteaders in the Headlights” as this year’s Best Migration Memoir.

Harbeson’s story tells what happens when a family from New Jersey makes a Depression-era trek to Wasilla.

“My dad was a teacher in Wasilla for 20-some years,” Harbeson said. “I think my mother must have gotten homesick — we ended up back in the states for two years.”

The family moved back to the Knik area where they homesteaded near Joe Redington’s place. These days, Harbeson lives in Ninilchik, but gets back to Wasilla pretty regularly.

“I usually come up every month and a half or so. My brothers and sisters live there. My brother’s got Parkinson’s (disease). So I go up and see him, help him out,” he said.

Harbeson’s a retired teacher. He started his career in the Bush, teaching in communities such as Selawik, Kivalina, Noorvik, Emmonak and Alakanuk. He finally moved back onto the road system with a job in Anchor Point from which he retired early.

He said he tried for 10 years to get hired in Wasilla, but never got a teaching job. He wonders if politics played a role — George Harbeson Sr. helped found the Valley’s first teachers’ association.

The memoir kind of evolved over time.

“I started out as just a family history for family and relatives back East who hadn’t seen hardly any of us for years and years,” Harbeson said. “I found a lot of hand-written memoirs from my father back in the Depression (when) they owned a farm in northern New Jersey, not too far from New York City, actually.”

He said he started adding that into the book.

“It was like he was writing it with me almost, even though he passed away many years ago,” Harbeson said.

After putting it all to paper, he had to find a publisher. He said he talked with the owners of a bookstore in Homer whose family he actually mentions in “Homesteaders in the Headlights.”

“I’d go in and I’d say, ‘hey you know any publishers?’ and they’d say, ‘well, try this one, try that one,’” Harbeson said. On one such trip, “They said (to) try Jackie Pels, Hardscratch Press out of Walnut Creek.”

Hardscratch put together a great product, Harbeson said, which was good because he wanted it to be nice. Longtime Wasilla public servant and Alaska legend Katie Hurley wrote the introduction and he wanted a book that lived up to the consideration she gave him.

The finished product certainly did live up to that. It has tons of photos and a handsome full-color cover. Hardscratch put the book up for the award he won. He said he was lucky to find Hardscratch and working with them was wonderful.

“I say it’s better than working with family because family you always get into arguments,” he said.

Whether or not the book has caught on is anybody’s guess. Harbeson said he’s been going to more and more book-signing events lately. He’s due for another one in Palmer July 9 at Fireside Books. Anyone who’s interested can find the book there or online through Hardscratch publishing.

Harbeson said the book contains stories, but they’re normal stories of everyday life.

“We didn’t take a bulldozer to the top of Mount McKinley or wrestle grizzly bears, although we did see them,” Harbeson said.

There’s a story about a basketball team out of Kenai forfeiting a game it was winning because Wasilla’s gym was so bad. And there’s one kind of surreal story about a rumor of a guy gathering up blood from horses to try to resurrect his dead friend.

Those were different times in the Valley. These days, things are completely different around here.

“Wasilla is totally unrecognizable,” Harbeson said. “Even Knik and out by us and Redington’s the urban or suburban sprawl has just about reached it.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.