Joan Juster attends screening of documentary film detailing New Deal project that sent Midwest families to Alaska
Filmmaker Joan Juster had a dramatic entrance into the Ranier Community Building Wednesday night following a showing of her documentary film “Alaska Far Away.”
After a day-long trip from the Twin Cities, which included car troubles, Juster made it to the screening minutes after the film’s final sequence ended to answer questions from the audience and gather reaction about the film.
“International Falls is far away,” she joked, noting that at various stops along the way she was told “just another hour and a half.” After that much driving, she was told the same distance again, she said. Because of this, she said, Borderland began to feel more distant and remote than the city in Alaska that was the focus of the film.
The film was shown in Ranier free of cost and was sponsored by the Koochiching Historical Society.
The film documents a New Deal project started by Franklin Roosevelt in the mid-1930s following the stock market crash and Great Depression. The project would move 200 families from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan who were looking for work to the Matanuska Valley of Alaska in the city of Palmer.
The families, who had already battled hard times in the Midwest, would face their toughest challenge yet as they moved thousands of miles from their extended families and the home they had known. The families were mostly young couples, many with children. Some of the colonists would stay in the village for the rest of their lives, while others would return to the contiguous 48 after only a few months or years in The Last Frontier.
Alaska was not formally admitted into the United States at that time, so it was a growth project for the possession; it would also serve as a strategic center for population during the upcoming World War II.
The project has been both critiqued and hailed as a success depending on what group one speaks with, Juster said. For those whose families were impacted by the government project, Juster said the project was unanimously favored by those she interviewed. But historians and intellectuals who have studied this and other similar projects deem it a failure 75 years later.
“I always like watching the film with a live audience,” Juster said Thursday as she visited The Journal on her day-long tour of the city. Watching the film with others has brought along new perspectives on the topic, even for the filmmakers who have spent the last 16 years immersed in the history.
She said the group of about 50 people who attended the live screening Wednesday was a well-read and knowledgeable audience. And, members of the audience noted, the Ranier Community Building itself was a product of a New Deal agency Works Progress Administration.
Several members of the audience had family members who were colonists or were related to colonists, making the experience that much more personal. Six Koochiching County couples were involved in the project; and a pair of brothers and their new brides wrote a diary that was featured prominently in the film.
But even for those without a familial connection to the 1935 experiment, the relevance to modern economic situations was apparent. Juster discussed the comparisons between the 1930s and late 2000s with the audience and The Journal.
For Juster, finishing the film in 2008 brought two new surprises. First, the film’s relevance to modern day became even more apparent as stock prices plummeted, unemployment rose sharply and economic conditions began to eerily seem similar to those that led to the New Deal programs.
Second, Sarah Palin, a previously unknown political figure as the governor of Alaska, was thrust into the national spotlight. She brought her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska and the nearby communities (including Palmer), into the national radar. Just days before Palin was courted as the Republican vice presidential candidate for John McCain, she attended and took photos with Juster at the Alaska State Fair, held each year in Palmer.
Letters from constituents read by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Senate floor during a December 8.5-hour marathon speech closely resembled those asking to be part of the New Deal program in 1935.
“The film became timely because times became hard again,” Juster said.
And although the events in the film have political motivations and spur discussion from both sides of the aisle, she hopes it presents a view that does not answer the tough questions — but rather sparks more discussion.
“No matter where we show it, people from both persuasions take something away,” she said.
But the conditions that were faced by colonists could never be seen in modern times due to technological changes that allow constant communication across the globe.
“We’ll never feel that far away again,” she said.
The film has been shown in repeat performances recently on Twin Cities and Bemidji public television. It will also be played on Wisconsin Public Television. Juster hints at a return trip to International Falls for another screening — in the summer.
