ALASKA: The Valley

The curtain in a Broadway playhouse went up, several years ago, on an Alaskan valley and a colony of bankrupt, wrangling, hopeful, bewildered, bitter Midwesterners transplanted there by the U. S. Government. The play was called 200 Were Chosen. Act I—”This is the Matanuska Valley—best little “valley in South Alaska. The Government brung you here and it’s gonna do a lot for you.”

“We’re farmers—we’ve got to get a-farmin’. We ain’t goin’ back on no Goddamned relief no more. . . .” Act II—”If you think anyone can make a livin’ in this dump you’re crazy.”

“Summers are all right . . . but winters—thirty-five below! Drifts twenty feet deep! A man can freeze to death up here as easy as holding out his hand. . . .” Act III—”People were up all night. You could hear ’em coughing. . . .”

“Is he worse?”

“I don’t know. He seems to be so cold all the time. . . .”

“Tommy, he’s—dead?”

“Yeh, it costs a lot to live in a place like this, lady!”

Last week this Broadway drama of hardships was bleak reality. As the farmers of Matanuska Valley, after four years’ uneven struggle against mounting debts for machinery and equipment supplied by the Government, prepared to reap the best harvest in years and write off some of their obligations, an Arctic blast sent the mercury down to 10° below zero. Potatoes froze in the field, 80% of the grain stood in the field, unharvested and ruined, acres of market produce were destroyed, and under a foot and a half of snow the Valley lay in white, stricken silence.