Where we live in the world

A team of Mat-Su Borough employees, business owners and residents are already being assembled to organize events marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the borough on Jan. 1, 1964. To help, contact 745-9525 or pam.graham@matsugov.us.

In those early days of borough history, Alaska had a population of about 226,167 and about 5,188 people lived in the Mat-Su Borough. Our first big jump in population came in the 1980 Census when the population reached 17,816. A decade later, nearly 40,000 people called the Mat-Su home. In 2000, we were right at 60,000, and during the most recent count it had increased to 88,995; that’s 17-fold growth in the past 46 years.

For much of the borough’s early history, the people who lived here knew each other. But as our population began to increase rapidly, fewer and fewer of us remembered the old days before roads were paved and telephone and electric service were available across the Valley.

Our population growth means we no longer know our neighbors. It means many of us moved to Alaska from elsewhere in the past 20 years. Sometimes it seems the only part of local history people know is the story of the Colonists who came to Palmer 77 years ago. And that can leave people with the impression that no one lived here until that Alaska Railroad train pulled into Palmer in May 1935.

But the history of this place is much richer and much more ancient than this one event.

Looking back, there’s a place in Alaska history where we rely on anthropologists to tell the story. Anthropologists say Alaska Native people have survived off the land for 10,000 years.

In the Mat-Su Valley, the land is made of the bones of the Ahtna Athabascan ancestors. They had their own culture, their own traditions, their own language and their own names for the lakes and mountains. They made their homes among the trees, lakes and streams, moving from camp to camp, gathering food to stay alive.

Our history says it was Alaska Native people who led modern day newcomers to local deposits of gold and coal. When the presence of gold and other minerals was announced to the world, fortune seekers began making their way here.

Later, when the U.S. Navy needed fuel to power its ships, coal from the Matanuska coal fields was tested and found suitable. So in 1916, Alaska Railroad built a spur to the Matanuska Valley Coal Field and coal was mined here until oil became a cheaper fuel source in the 1960s and the mines closed.

Those are a few of the highlights from this area’s modern history. We point them out to spotlight the long history of life here that predates our roads, schools, tax systems and form of government.

Wednesday marks the ribbon cutting for Southcentral Foundation’s Valley Native Primary Care Center, Benteh Nuutah. The new health care center was built here to serve the fastest growing segment of the Mat-Su Borough’s population — Alaska Native people.

With this facility’s opening, newcomers of all sorts have a chance to learn more about where we live in the world and whose ancestors’ bones make up this land.