Vision for Icefield Farm

In 2021, we bought seventeen acres of beach meadows and spruce groves at Point Agassiz, Alaska, 10 miles north of Petersburg across the iceberg-strewn waters of Frederick Sound. Our land was once part of the Ramstead dairy farm, one of several that sprang up on this wide swath of sandy glacial till in the early 20th century.  The Ramsteads left in 1939, but the land is still productive and has actually increased in acreage as glacial rebound lifts these meadows up from the sea at the rate of about 1/2" per year.  The Point Agassiz area is one of a few scattered patches of arable land in all of Southeast Alaska, and in a world where the future of long-distance supply chains is uncertain, it could be a vital resource for the entire region.

Our vision for Icefield Farm is guided by permaculture design principles and our love of being on the land. There are two main components to what we are building here:

• A bareroot plant nursery providing useful and beautiful trees, shrubs, and perennials adapted to the unique climate of Southeast Alaska.  We want to maximize the range of food-producing plants that are grown here. This region is also the world's largest cool maritime zone and has the potential to serve as a refuge for plant species from other parts of the world facing warming, drying, conditions as well as habitat destruction. One example is the Monkey Puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana, an endangered species native to a few isolated mountain ranges in Chile, but able to grow and thrive in cool, damp, climates elsewhere. The monkey puzzle is also an important food source for people, livestock and wildlife in its homeland, and could be here as well. In lower latitudes and the Southern Hemisphere there are many such species limited to isolated mountain tops or remote islands, and introducing them to horticulture in SE AK would not only enrich what is available to farmers and gardeners here but also serve as ex-situ conservation for those species.

• 100% grass-fed, A2/A2 dairy cattle as the keystone species and provider of raw dairy to the diversified small farmstead and the knowledge of dairy farming to the wider community.  Small dairies were once a widespread feature of the American landscape, even here in Southeast Alaska. People here still consume a wide range of dairy products but these are shipped long distances, usually of low quality and denatured by industrial processing. We are confident that high-quality raw, grass-fed dairy production will be a huge asset to the nutrition and health of Petersburg and the broader region of Southeast. The knowledge of how to make this work, such as making hay in this cool, wet climate, has largely been lost or forgotten but there are plenty of examples from similar climates like northern Europe and Russia. We see part of our work as bringing back this knowledge so that small, local dairies can once more feed communities here.

Tlingit people have carefully managed the landscapes and waters of this region since ancient times, stewarding vital populations of salmon, herring, eulachon, deer, and other creatures. We hold those traditions in the highest respect, and we believe that by working in the open niche  of grazing and agroforestry on these newly uplifted lands, we will leave more traditional resources for the people who rely on them and make our local food web stronger and more diverse. Deer and moose are browsers that consume very little of the meadow grasses at Point Agassiz. Grazers like cattle could take advantage of this abundant resource, and with proper management maintain these rare open habitats. 

Agroforestry practices also have great potential benefits for the local moose population in particular. By opening up dense young stands of conifers and establishing more deciduous trees and shrubs like willow, dogwood and mountain ash along the edges of forest and meadow, we can feed moose and improve grazing for livestock. In early 2024 we planted out several hundred willow cuttings along the road to the Icefield Farm property, for erosion control, moose browse, livestock fodder, and craft materials.

We believe there is a real opportunity to integrate globally-informed regenerative practices with the history of what has worked on this specific landscape in the past. At this moment in history there is an agricultural renaissance happening outside the model of large-scale industrialized farming. Small farmers around the world are exchanging knowledge and seeds, and a host of new and ancient ideas are percolating through to be used on the ground. 

• Agroforestry
• Management-intensive grazing and mixed-species grazing
• Draft animals
• Tree hay
• Masonry stoves
• Composting toilets
• Biochar production
• Coppicing and pollarding
• Green woodworking
• Hedge laying

We see great potential at Point Agassiz for a thriving community of small farms that could supply not only Petersburg, but the wider region of Southeast Alaska with fresh dairy, meat, fruits, vegetables, wool, and medicinal plants of the highest quality.