On the Saturday before the opening of the Southeast Alaska State Fair, McPherson Barn was brimming with activity.
Drills and saws ran simultaneously as volunteers worked to build pens for animals that had not yet arrived.
Tommy Thompson and another man assembled railing for a pig-racing track that would take the speedy swine on a route around the duck and chicken enclosures. It’s sure to prompt a flash of frantic activity and feathers for the crowd, said Thompson, with a grin.
As they worked, Greg Podsiki, the barn manager, walked up with lunch for himself and another volunteer. This year, Podsiki has breathed new life into the Fair’s barn which for years saw a shrinking number of animals.
Podsiki took it upon himself to start up a new 4-H chapter in the Chilkat Valley, and revitalize the Fair’s animal offerings.
“Last year when I came, my daughter had nine chickens here and that’s all that there was in the whole fair,” he said.
Podsiki said the animals were always his favorite part of fairs when he was growing up.
Twenty years ago when he managed the Chilkat Valley’s fair barn for a few years, he said it was often packed.
“We had a cow from Whitehorse, we had all sorts of animals,” he said.
This year, his children asked him to take it over again – which he agreed to do on the condition that they help him with the project.
“I haven’t seen them here yet,” he quipped. “My grandson was here.”
Looking out over the barn, Podsiki said he could not have gotten everything together for this year were it not for the army of volunteers who came out to help him and the people who donated money. So far, he’s brought in $6,250 to help with the effort of transporting, feeding and watering the animals during the week.
The cavernous barn is filled with pens for ducks, geese, chickens, pigs, and rabbits. There’s a turkey pen at one end that will hold 10 young turkeys and one large male turkey, two pens for goats and two enclosures ready for horses coming up from Juneau on Thursday.
“It’s going to be a full barn,” said Podsiki, who intends to park a trailer at one end and sleep with the animals to make sure there is no trouble with bears. Though, he doesn’t remember that’s been a problem in the past.
“I feel very responsible for these animals,” he said.
One motivation for Podsiki’s renewed interest in the barn is that he believes a fair should be about agriculture in the area. He said as the timing of the fair has moved earlier into the summer, it’s hard for people to show off their crops and food they’ve processed because it hasn’t been done yet. He also said people should get the chance to have a close encounter with livestock.
It’s not really a petting zoo, but Podsiki said if it were up to him, it would be a chance for everyone to get the chance to touch some of the animals on display.
“Sniff a horse, see what a horse smells like. Scratch a pig’s belly. Hold the chickens,” he said.
In addition to the pig races, Podsiki said there will be first-, second- and third-place awards given for the animals.
That’s something former fair manager Joanne Waterman said used to drive people to bring their animals, art and exhibits to the fair.
“Locally, there’s a level of competition about it,” she said. “There used to be a lot of bragging rights in all of the exhibits. The Fair used to put out a cookbook and it was all the winning recipes and stuff that got to be in the cookbook.
“Nellie Dale was really proud of her canned salmon. She won every year. People would say, ‘Oh, I gotta beat Nellie,” Waterman said.
Neither Waterman nor Podsiki could identify why the number of animals at the fair has declined.
Waterman said she remembers a gradual decline during her tenure in the late 1980s.
And, she said, what Podsiki is doing is a huge job.
“Trying to find somebody who’s willing to devote, you know, a month and a half to get the barn ready and to drum up the people to bring their animals in. It’s a huge job,” she said. “I admire that so much about him because I know what it takes.”
Podsiki said there are fewer people raising livestock in the Chilkat Valley now, but when he started calling around he was surprised by the number of people in the upper valley who had some to offer.
Ultimately, he’s hoping children who come to this year’s fair and see the animals will be motivated to join his new 4-H chapter, which could lead to even more animals in the future.
The post New manager promises packed barn for this year’s fair appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.
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