“Fun on the Farm in Alaska” Bert Stimple

I like to read books about the areas I travel to, but no reading could be closer to the land I am staying on more than Fun on the Farm. Bert Stimple came to Alaska in 1936 looking for a better life. He had worked for 2 years for the CCC to save money to put together the gear needed to move to the Tanana River Valley to start a farm. His first farm was on Farmer Loop Road, but he then homesteaded a 160 acre plot on Steele Creek Road, and the address of the cabin I am living in now is Steele Creek Road. Not only is the book written about farming this area, but he talks about people who still live here and homesteaded with him in the 40s and 50s. As I drive around the area where the cabin I’m staying in is you’ll see Stimple Ct. but also roads named Northwood, Eastwood and Woodview, named for the Wood family that homesteaded that area and still live there. One road is Spudwood, named for the potato fields that were there farmed by the Woods. The Wood family appears in the book, and Tiger Wood (the father of the farming family, not Tiger Woods the golfer) was a great friend of Bert Stimple.

The book truly is about Fun on the Farm. In the foreword, Bert writes that “the writer…refers to himself in the third person throughout the book,” but Bert not only had a wry sense of humor starting with that line, but an out and out bold sense of humor that he inflicted on friend and foe alike. In short, Bert was a prankster of the worse kind, and the book is essentially a retelling of the tricks he played on the people he lived and worked with.

At the same time, Bert gives the history of farming in the Tanana Valley in the 30s, 40s and 50s. He talks about the development of coops, the struggle to pass a farm finance bill in Juneau and serving on various agricultural and commercial boards. His history takes us from horse power to tractor power, from no agricultural regulation to produce inspection and, probably most importantly, from a time when people thought that Alaska was too far north for farming to recognition of the value of agricultural here. But throughout, Bert and Tiger play pranks on preachers, nice ladies in town and friends and neighbors. From the classic bucket of water over threshold to Rube Goldberg rainmaking machines that seem to work, Bert had a vivid imagination and was always looking for a laugh.

One reason I liked this small book was that it tells a different story about Alaska than what much of the touristy reading tells. You'll find a lot of reading about the prostitutes of Fairbanks, about the miners who came (and still come) to Alaska, and about the various booms like the building of the pipeline. The booms and busts of the interior of Alaska have left a lot of colorful stories about unsavory activities, so I was pleased to see a side of Fairbanks that was so positive and family friendly.

It wasn’t clear to me if this book, written in 1962 was meant for adults or adolescents. It is written with an innocence that you won’t find in adult literature now, but was more common 50 years ago. It is interesting reading "The Day the Century Ended" by Francis Irby Gwaltney and this book at the same time. Stimple starts with the aftermath of the Great Depression and the book covers the period of the Second World War and beyond. Gwaltney’s book is about the time before and during the war and was published in 1956, so they cover much of the same time period. As coincidence would have it, when these two books were written, both men were living in and around Conway, Arkansas, because Gwaltney lived in the hills of Arkansas all his life and Stimple retired there. The books, though, would not have the same rating if they were movies. Stimple was a prankster and often bent the law to serve his needs---for instance, he siphoned gasoline to fuel his motorcycle in order to make it to Fairbanks---but he made a good life for himself and his wife by hard work and clean living. The story in "The Day the Century Ended" tells about a much harder life with harsher language and explicit sexual content, but more about that in a later post.

My sister and I wonder if others who are not from this area of Alaska and don’t know the people involved would be interested in "Fun on the Farm in Alaska." Her boyfriend is the son of the Tiger Wood that Stimple talks about in the book, and she lives on Wood Rd., so she has an interest in knowing the history of the family she loves. I have an interest in all things Alaska. The book is fun to read, but it probably does not have broad appeal.