Out Here

The state has more land and a lower population density than any other. Dreams to clear swaths of it, feed the state and export crops to Asia have come and gone over the years. On this episode, We'll travel to the Fairbanks Experiment Farm to meet the researcher growing wheat. We’ll hear more about the history of those ambitions, the obstacles they’ve faced and what climate change could mean for their future. Then, we’ll meet a cattle rancher and farmer who’s doing his best to keep that dream alive.

BONUS: THE CARROT KING & QUEEN “” Like a lot of the farms in Alaska, Spinach Creek Farm is a clearing in the forest at the end of a dirt road. An electric fence surrounds the 10-acre farm to keep the moose out. There’s chickens; a greenhouse full of tomatoes; rows of beets, potatoes and cabbage. And of course, carrots. Thirty rows of them to be exact. “We started with like seven rows and then sold them in a day,” Lynn Mayo said when I visited on a warm day in August. Lynn and her husband Pete started the farm in 1994. They cleared the land themselves. And like so many other Alaskans and particularly Alaskan farmers, they had to be pioneers. “You can’t find a lot of equipment,” Lynn said. “You have to go outside. You have to get it up here.” Or, you have to build it yourself. They both work on the farm full-time in the summer, and they spend their winters fixing what’s broken and building new infrastructure. Like their greenhouse with in-floor heating, or Pete’s carrot-washing contraption that he built after he saw a picture of one. He also built something like a conveyer belt to get the heavy crates of carrots from the ground to the washer. Pete shies away from the microphone when he comes out to meet me. He’s not the biggest talker, and there’s too much to be done. Summer in Alaska is non-stop for most of us, but for farmers especially so. He busies himself with disassembling their irrigation system for the season while we talk. August is usually a rainy month in Fairbanks, and this year—unlike most of the state—they’re getting some precipitation. Pete grew up in Fairbanks, and he thinks fall is coming later than it used to. He remembers waiting until the first of October to go out on the ponds when he was a kid. “Now there's no ice the first of October, or if there is, you better not go out on it,” he said. “That really seems different.” But, he’s hesitant to rely too much on his memory to provide insight into how the area’s climate might be changing. “The big data is what’s really telling the story,” he said. “Me as a farmer, I don't know if I remember things that well. I mean some things you try to forget actually. You try to forget how horrible and rainy it was in whatever year that was.” At their stand at the Tanana Valley Farmer’s Market, people line up before they’re even open. They sell out fast. “I think you could grow and sell anything,” Lynn said. “There’s not enough farmers.” They’re just growing a tiny portion of the food that people eat for the year. “It really should go up for Alaska to be able to support itself and not rely on so much trucking," she said. “There’s just satisfaction with fresher and closer and better (food).” But whether people are willing to make the effort and pay the price is a different story. “It’s hard to know if that is really important to the whole culture out there or not. You kinda get a feeling that it isn’t really important to an awful lot of people,” Pete said. “Yeah people have to work hard to go to the farmer’s market,” Lynn adds. When I asked them what keeps them going on a hard day—why put in all this work? The answer is simple. “I love growing good vegetables, providing good food for people to eat,” Lynn said. “Yeah,” Pete said. “That's the short answer.”

On this episode, we’ll touch on an important piece of agriculture in Alaska: the legacy of homesteading and how it’s changed with the times. The harsh climate, extra expenses and nutrient-lacking soils make homesteading in Alaska particularly gritty sometimes. On episode five, we’ll meet two women who’ve proved up for the challenge. Tenley Nelson is a New England transplant who homesteads on property inherited from her husband's grandparents in Strelna, Alaska. Ina Jones farms peonies, raises horses and puts up hay with her husband Speck outside of Homer, where they've lived all their lives. On this episode, we’ll talk about climate change, subsistence, peonies, land access and so much more.

Then, we’ll talk about how Mike Emers of Rosie Creek Farm has seen Alaska’s agricultural scene evolve in the 22 years since he started farming. And of course, we’ll hear his thoughts on how climate change is influencing his work.

On this episode, we'll meet Nasugraq Rainey Hopson. She and her project Gardens in the Arctic live in Anaktuvuk Pass, about 90 miles north of the Arctic Circle. There isn’t exactly a lot of farming going on here. But Rainey Hopson is not the kind of person who cares about what’s normal. We’ll talk about climate change, food security, the Inupiaq connection to plants and so much more. We’ll hear all about Rainey’s project and the agricultural revolution she’s plotting up there in the Arctic.

On this episode, we'll travel to the southeastern Alaska town of Haines, where farmland is scarce. There we'll meet two beginning farmers using all the persistence and optimism they can muster to start farms and nudge a budding local food movement. We'll talk about the lessons farming teaches about the natural world--for children and adults. And we'll discuss what it's like to farm in a place without a strong agricultural tradition.

On season two, agriculture in rural Alaska and what climate change could mean for its future. Here you’ll get some of the complicated story of Alaska agriculture from the perspective of Alaska farmers. It’s a story full of failure and innovation, one that defies stereotypes and looks quite a bit different from the mono-crop agriculture that dominates the lower 48.

Out Here tells the stories of people who've dared to live life differently. Focused on the end-of-the-road community of McCarthy, Alaska, and the surrounding area, it explores off-the-grid living, raising children in the wilderness, bucking the 9-to-5, and living off the land. What's it really like living at the end of a 60-mile dirt road in the middle of the country's largest national park? Here you'll learn about the boundaries of freedom and what happens when a community of transplants tries to make a go of it living in the woods.

McCarthy, Alaska, sits at the end of a 60-mile dirt road in the heart of the country's largest national park. Hear what drew people here, from panning for gold to searching for simplicity.

The turn of a faucet, the flip of the switch, the drive to the grocery store: things we take for granted. But what's it like to build it all from scratch?

Alarm clocks, traffic, 9-to-5 desk jobs: Meet people who've thrown all that out the window and trudged down their own dirt road.

The solitude scares many, but the intimacy might be more intimidating. Living through a winter with another person in a tiny cabin is no small feat. And what about raising kids?

In the middle of the country's largest national park, people live with animals large and small, and they also live with the weather. In a place like McCarthy, the outside creeps in. Because you depend on the resources around you to survive and because you can't even go to the bathroom without venturing outside.

People come and go. Others stay for years. There's no government beyond the state. And there's all different ideas of what the community really is or what it should be. Yet, somehow, it works.

What's progress like in a place surrounded by preservation, a place who's golden age is 100 years past? Technology, access, tourism: they've all brought change to McCarthy. Is there such thing as the good old days? If you could hold back the tide, would you?