Crew
JJ
Joan Juster
Director
JJ
Joan Juster
Producer
JF
Jim Fox
Writer
PH
Paul Hill
Writer
JJ
Joan Juster
Writer
ML
Mark Lipman
Writer
PH
Paul Hill
Director
PH
Paul Hill
Producer
Cast
Peter Coyote
Narrator
Alaska Far Away
The New Deal Pioneers of the Matanuska Colony
200891m
Documentary
'Alaska Far Away' tells the story of the Matanuska Colonization Project of 1935, a creative and controversial New Deal program that relocated 202 families devastated by the Great Depression, taking them from the upper Midwest to the Matanuska Valley in Alaska to start an experimental farming colony. It generated a whirlwind of publicity and controversy at the time, not only as a federally-funded social experiment, but also as one of the last pioneer movements in America. The Matanuska Colony isn't just a fascinating footnote to the history of Alaska. It encompasses the despair of the Depression, the creative energy of the New Deal, the adventure of pioneering in Alaska, and the best and worst of our government and ordinary citizens in facing those extraordinary challenges.
