Gilbertson interview included in new documentary

Gilbertson

An interview with the late Kris Gilbertson, editor emeritus of the Daily News, will be included in a documentary film about Alaskan pioneers set to screen in Madison in April.

According to producer/director Joan Juster of Juster Hill Productions of San Francisco, Gilbertson was interviewed for the project 13 years ago.

“In 1995 we came to Rhinelander to conduct interviews for our documentary film, ‘Alaska Far Away: The New Deal Pioneers of the Matanuska Colony’...making an historical documentary is a long and expensive process, so it took us longer to finish the film than anticipated. But I'm happy to announce that ‘Alaska Far Away’ is now completed, and will be featured in the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison on Saturday, April 5,” Juster said.

Juster produced and directed the film with her partner, Paul Hill. So far it has been shown in San Francisco and Alaska where it was well received. It will also eventually be part of the history curriculum in Alaskan schools.

According to Juster, the documentary explores a little-known chapter of our country's history, when Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal sent 202 impoverished farm families from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota to the Matanuska Valley in Alaska, to start a new life and to colonize America's far-flung territory.

“The Matanuska Colonization Project of 1935 was among the most unusual and controversial of the many New Deal programs designed to help ordinary citizens devastated by the Great Depression. It generated a whirlwind of publicity and controversy at the time, not only as a very expensive federally-funded social experiment, but also as one of the last pioneer movements in America,” Juster said.

The film is narrated by renowned actor Peter Coyote and features interviews with the Matanuska colonists themselves as well as many notable Wisconsinites.

Gilbertson is one of two editors emeritus featured in the film. Arville Schaleben, editor emeritus of the Milwaukee Journal, was also interviewed.

Throughout his nearly 70 year career with the Daily News, Gilbertson wrote extensively about the Northwoods residents who became part of the Matanuska Colony. He died in 2002.

Alaska Far Away will be shown at 11 a.m. April 5 in the Bartell Theatre in Madison.

Juster said she hopes the film will eventually be shown in northern Wisconsin as well.