Following a highly controversial and ultimately failed attempt to change the name of “Colony Days” to the “Braided River Festival,” the 86-year-old celebration of the historic roots of Palmer is back this weekend with activities kicking off Friday.
The annual event was initially organized by the historic Matanuska Colony in the 1930s to celebrate the successful establishment of an agricultural outpost in Southcentral Alaska. The colony was part of a New Deal project that brought 203 families to the Mat-Su Valley to carve out a unique and enduring farming outpost.
As in past years, the event is expected to draw thousands of attendees for a parade, games, car shows, craft fairs, tractor pulls, reindeer rides, music, food and various other festivities in honor of the community’s founding.
Over the past 40 years, the Palmer Chamber has taken over the management of the popular celebration.
In March, the Palmer Chamber initially announced it had rebranded “Colony Days” to “The Braided River Festival.” This was met by widespread community outcry and the decision was reversed within days, with an apology.
Not only did the Chamber restore the original name for the summer festival, but it also brought back the “Colony Christmas” name, after rebranding the winter event to “Hometown Holidays,” a title that downplays both the 1935 colony as well as the religious connection to the December 25 celebration.
Controversy regarding “Colony Days” first ignited on March 24, when the Palmer Chamber announced that there would be no mention of “colony” in the official title of the three-day event.
In initially justifying the removal of “colony” from the summer festival, the Palmer Chamber released a statement saying the new “Braided River Festival” name was a better reflection of modern-day Palmer.
The Palmer Chamber is by no means the first organization to try and reject references to the word “colony.” Over the past few years, a number of so-called “woke” groups have eradicated the term to signal sufficient sensitivity to a litany of historic grievances. Most often highlighted by left-leaning activists and critical race theorists, the frequent claim is that America is a fundamentally racist country, founded by morally flawed colonists.
The Palmer Chamber’s failed plan to erase “colony” appears to have been in the works since last summer, when then Chamber President-elect (and now president) Sam Dinges gathered outside the Palmer Museum to read an apologetic land acknowledgment to a small contingent of somber faced attendees. He claimed that the word “colony” has “hurtful connotations and that not everyone’s experience of the Palmer story has been the same.”
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It turns out that the Mat-Su Health Foundation, a powerful organization with hundreds of millions of dollars at its disposal, was intimately involved in helping to fund the rebranding plan. In applying for a grant from the foundation, which has since been rescinded, the Palmer Chamber described the goal as removing a “highly offensive and hurtful historical term – ‘Colony’ – for its summer and winter festivals (Colony Days and Colony Christmas).”
With the initial controversy now behind the event, Colony Days will kick off on Friday, June 10. The Saturday parade starts at 11 a.m., winding its way through downtown showcasing the unique flavor of the historic farming community. Those looking for fresh local produce will have plenty of options, along with a variety of other food and locally made Alaskan crafts.
This year’s theme is “Fields of Fun.” For more information, including a rundown of events, times and locations, visit the Colony Day’s website.
4 Comments
Hallmark of communist takeovers is the erasure of history – look at the maoists in China, the Stalin/Leninists in Russia, the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, and the “cleansing” of history in North Korea.
All of the these movements started as “noble” attempts to right wrongs in their countries – in the end the movements devolved into the most brutal repressive regimes seen in history.
The movements all started with these 2 harbingers – first was the de-emphasis on the family and the traditional cultural values of the society – and the second was the demonization of any one and any institution that was prosperous and successful, accusing them of ill gotten gains.
Sound familiar?
The Left’s refusal to allow anyone of dissenting opinion to be heard, the Left’s willingness to subvert individual rights for the “good of the masses” should be a warning to us all of what is to come – the revolution by the Left has started – they control the levers in education, MSM, popular culture, and now the board rooms of corporate Amerika.
It should be VERY sobering that counter revolutions have rarely been successful in history.
Wake up!
Those folks who involve themselves in trying to turn this nation and state to communism are not the hard working people who developed both! They are late comers who live off of what the early Civ no developers struggled for, even though they were imperfect, as we all are. We, as a Nation, have made great strides in improving man’s existence even though we remain imperfect! Perfection may come in the next life !
“the frequent claim is that America is a fundamentally racist country, founded by morally flawed colonists.”
Morally flawed or not, they were the beginnings of the greatest country the world has ever known. And everyone sure seems to enjoy the freedoms that those flawed people and their offspring built into the country’s foundations.
A correction needs to be made in the third to last paragraph of this opinion piece. The Mat-Su Health Foundation grant to the Palmer Chamber of Commerce was not rescinded; it was voluntarily returned by the Chamber. As previously offered, please feel free to reach out to the Mat-Su Health Foundation in order to accurately report on our work.