“The valley looks great. It looks fine, fine. You got a mighty nice place here.”     ~American humorist and commentator Will Rogers, Palmer, Alaska, August, 1935

The newest book from Northern Light Media combines the history of the Matanuska Valley with the photographs of A.R.R.C. photographer Willis T. Geisman, who was charged with recording the events surrounding the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project. This book combines two earlier titles into one comprehensive history of this important era in Alaska, when the federal government took a direct hand in the future of the territory.

The Matanuska Colony Project was part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal for America, an unprecedented series of economic programs designed to provide aid to people reeling from the Great Depression. Nearly one hundred new communities were designed and developed by Roosevelt’s planners, but the largest, most expensive, and most audacious of them all was to build a government-sponsored farming community in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley.

“A Mighty Nice Place,” The History of the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project, by Helen Hegener, explains how a few visionary men convinced the planners in Washington, D.C. to extend their community-building efforts north to Alaska, and tells the complex story of this important chapter in Alaska’s history.

Photo by Willis T. Geisman, A.R.R.C. 1935

The remarkable photos of official A.R.R.C. photographer Willis T. Geisman documented every aspect of the venture, and his compelling images tell the true stories, moments in time captured and preserved, brought together here with the detailed history of the Matanuska Colony Project.

Kindle Edition now available. $3.99

“A Mighty Nice Place,” The History of the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project, by Helen Hegener. Published in November, 2016 by Northern Light Media. 276 pages, 120 photos, 6″ x 9″ b/w format. $24.00 plus $5.00 shipping. Click here to order now via PayPal.