Taylor Raftery

Photo/Image Credit: Mat-Su Trails & Parks Foundation

The Mat-Su Trails & Parks Foundation partners with organizations and local governments on projects and efforts that expand and enhance the Mat-Su Valley’s network of trails and parks.

Join host Mike Chmielewski and his guest, Palmer’s Mayor Jim Cooper. Listen in as the Mayor gives an update on local construction projects and a preview of this week’s Celebrate Palmer Festival.

Image Credit: Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce

Jim Cooper, Mayor of Palmer

Photo Credit: City of Palmer

Check out the Discover Wild Heritage talks on Friday nights at 6 p.m. at the Mat-Su River Park. Tonight Michelle Rogers from the Mat-Su Borough presents Food for Thought: Foraging From One Hungry Hiker to the Next.

The park sits just outside downtown Palmer at Mile 17 of the Old Glenn Highway. Talks are held at an outdoor amphitheater near the day-use field.

The Mat-Su Borough sponsors them. Mat-Su Borough Division Manager of Parks, Recreation and Libraries Andy Mergens says the series gives people something informational and instructional to do on a Friday evening. Locals, campers, and visitors of all ages are all welcome to free talk.

The series started in May. Several local organizations have presented.

Mergens notes that early turnout was inconsistent. He says recent crowds have grown to more than a dozen people.

He’d like to bring the series back next summer if interest continues. He is also considering adding a winter version at Government Peak Recreation Area.

Two of the speakers dig into the valley’s roots. The Chickaloon Village Traditional Council focuses on the history of the area before the 1930s. The Palmer Museum of History and Art focuses on the 1935 government colonization project that brought settlers to the Valley.

Chickaloon Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Angie Wade says the talks are informal and conversational. She says the Indigenous and early settler history goes back long before the Colony Project. Wade notes that the series fits Chickaloon’s mission to preserve and share Athabascan history.

The Alaska Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center brings live birds to its talks. One program featured a kestrel.

The talks are free and open to everyone. They start at 6 p.m. and run about an hour. They are relaxed and family friendly.

Next Friday the Palmer Museum talks about local history and the 1935 project. Presentations are scheduled through September 4.

Keep an eye on the Mat-Su Borough Recreation and Library Services Facebook page for the speaker each week.

The story is based on the article that appeared in the matsusentinel.com earlier this month.

Page 2 airs weekdays at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11:50 a.m., and 6 p.m.

Tune in at 89.7 in Palmer, 89.5 in Sutton, 88.3 in Chickaloon and Glacier View or online at bigcabbageradio.org.

Please support Page 2 News and Big Cabbage Radio. Become a member: Donate today at bigcabbageradio.org.

Emily Forstner reported Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.

That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Friday July 24, 2026.

You can sponsor Page 2 for a week. For $350, you get mentioned in all the Page 2 readings for the week. This includes 4 spots on air and posts on Facebook, NextDoor, and our website each weekday. Contact page2@radiofreepalmer.org if you’re interested.

Image: Shannon Jensen of the Alaska Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center gives a presentation on a red-tailed hawk during the Matanuska-Susitna Borough’s “Discover Wild Heritage” series at Matanuska River Park in Palmer. (Photo courtesy of the Matanuska Susitna Borough)

Whoo hoo, it’s almost the weekend. Here’s a small dip in the big pool of fun and exciting events happening in the Greater Palmer Metroplex and beyond.

Celebrate Palmer from 3 to 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Depot. Enjoy free hot dogs, local veggies, kids activities, beautification awards, and community at this annual event.

Channing Wilson performs for free tonight at the Mat-Su Resort. You already know his name if you watched The Road. Wilson finished as the runner-up. He takes the stage at 8 p.m. Info is at mat-suresort.com/music.

Grab your speediest shoes and sign up for the first annual Matanuska Mile at the Palmer High School track at 6 p.m. tonight. This race is a little longer than four laps around the track. Fees support the Palmer High cross country running team. Information and registration info are on the Matanuska Mile Facebook page.

The Palmer Museum of History and Art welcomes artist of the week Richard Rearick tomorrow. Drop in to the Museum after 11 a.m. to meet him and enjoy his art.

Jesse James plays at Friday Fling from noon to 3 p.m tomorrow. James describes his music as a mashup of Americana, folk, roots, blues, indie rock, alt-country, southern gothic, and a little punk swagger.

Stroll, sip, and explore downtown Palmer during the Summer Wine Walk tomorrow evening. Enjoy curated wine tastings at local businesses. Stop by the showcase garden for music, fun, and community. Your ticket supports the Palmer Museum of History and Art. Join neighbors, friends, and local hosts for an evening that pairs wine with the place we call home. Must be 21 or older to participate. Find tickets and information at palmermuseum.org

Author and Poet Corina Deiters signs copies of her poetry collection, “Marred Mask” at Fireside Books on Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m. Deiters is a survivor of domestic and sexual assault. She supports fellow survivors through trauma informed poetry classes. 

Join 203 Kombucha for a Tie Dye Party on Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. The dye, rubber bands, and gloves will be provided. Just bring your wonderful self and the clothing you want to tie dye! There will be t-shirts for purchase as well. 

Looking ahead, the Maryland State Boychoir will perform a free concert at Saint Michael’s Church on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The choir is composed of about 130 boys and young men, ages 7 to 20. They come from a range of ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds. Saint Michael’s is at 432 East Fireweed.

And that’s a wrap for a very small taste of the neat events happening around our locality. Get out of the house, get some fresh air and have some fun.

Have a great day and a better tomorrow.

Page 2 airs weekdays at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11:50 a.m., and 6 p.m.

Tune in at 89.7 in Palmer, 89.5 in Sutton, 88.3 in Chickaloon and Glacier View or online at bigcabbageradio.org.

Please support Page 2 News and Big Cabbage Radio. Become a member: Donate today at bigcabbageradio.org. 

Keith Peticolas reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson, produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.

Arabian Lane is just off the Palmer-Wasilla Highway outside Palmer. It feels like you’re entering a different world when you turn onto it.

You leave the bustle of a busy highway. You leave the string of commercial buildings that line it. You find yourself in a secluded, quiet neighborhood. You see gardens and horses and decorative super-tuffs along this idyllic drive. The neighborhood is called Arabian Acres.

David Cheezem rides his bike through this neighborhood. He was curious about its history. Why is it named Arabian Acres? Cheezem asked around. He discovered that Arabian Acres began as a homestead years ago. He couldn’t nail down an exact year. However, he found Kim Swift. Her family established the homestead.

Kim’s grandparents bred, raised, and sold Arabian horses on the homestead. Arabians are a special breed of horses. There’s a bond between the horses and their owners according to the Arabian Horse Times. The horses are sensitive to human emotions. They make great companions.

The roots of Arabian horses stretch back more than 4,000 years. Bedouin tribes needed the horses to survive. However, they were more than work horses. The Bedouins allowed their horses into their tents. They lived as a family. They bred the horses for their willingness to work. They also bred in traits of loyalty and companionship.

Arabians are quick learners and easy to train according to the article. They do demand attention though. Thousands of years of breeding produced a horse that wants human interaction and socialization.

Our reporter’s wife Melissa Behnke has fond memories of the horses. Her mother drove past the homestead on the way to work when Behnke was a kid. The most exciting part of the ride for young girl was seeing the Arabian horses.

The homestead is subdivided now. RW Burger sits on the original homestead site. The area manages to keep some of its original character. Arabian horses are memorialized in the subdivision placenames.

The neighborhood feels like a quiet refuge in a bustling part of the borough. You see horses munching on feed in their pens, although they aren’t necessarily Arabian horses.

“Arabian Acres” is an appropriate name.

Page 2 airs weekdays at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11:50 a.m., and 6 p.m.

Tune in at 89.7 in Palmer, 89.5 in Sutton, 88.3 in Chickaloon and Glacier View or online at bigcabbageradio.org.

Please support Page 2 News and Big Cabbage Radio. Become a member: Donate today at bigcabbageradio.org.

David Cheezem reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.

That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Wednesday, July 22, 2026.

Image: Posie Kennedy on horseback followed by Kim Swift’s mom. Swift’s grandmother follows on the white horse. All are riding Arabian Horses in this undated photo. Photo credit: Palmer Historical Society; sent to us by Kim Swift.

Join host Mike Chielewski and his guest, Gabe DeGange of Far North Fungi, as they discuss mushroom farming in Alaska.

Mike Chmielewski and Scott Blair from My Favorite Realty have their monthly talk about the local real estate market and current trends.

Scott Blair with My Favorite Reality

Image/Photo Credit: My Favorite Reality

Join host Mike Chmielewski and his guests, Kristi Reed and John Perez, as they discuss driving around the Earth. Discover what the Overlanders movement is and hear about Kristi and John’s planned trip around the Earth in their custom vehicle.

Kristi Reed and John Perez

Photo Credit: Pleasanton Weekly/Christian Trujano

There’s a straightaway section of the Glenn Highway between Sutton and Chickaloon at Milepost 70. The old Pinnacle Restaurant was here. For the last several years it has been the home of Alaska Woodyard, owned by Jeff and Jill Thornton.

The properties across the Glenn Highway from Alaska Woodyard are backed by the Matanuska River. The river has been eating away at them for years. It took the septic tank of a resident and closed in on his house. He had to re-locate. That property was bought by the Thorntons last summer. They removed the remaining structures.

This year heavy equipment has been clearing and filling at the site. So people have been asking “What’s going on at Mile 70?”

We need to go east to Long Lake to answer this. The Alaska Department of Transportation began a “Shave and Pave” maintenance operation on the Glenn Highway at Long Lake this summer. It goes from Milepost 83 to Milepost 92. Granite Construction is performing the work. It was supposed to be a simple operation: just pull up the old asphalt and lay down new.

The crews shaved the old asphalt and milled it into material to pave the pullouts. Flaggers flagged. Traffic crawled. Crews paved.

Then it rained. And it rained. And it rained. And the new pavement started slipping off the side of the mountain.

Turns out, that section of the highway does not have a solid base. It was built on dirt according to one crew member. They needed to dig deep and make that base. Crews are now digging three-feet, four-feet, even five-feet down to pull out the dirt and rock and replace it with gravel. The question became – where to put all that material?

That’s where Milepost 70 comes in. It was the perfect place to put the old dirt and rock. Trucks make a nice efficient loop. They haul old material away from Long Lake, unload it at Mile 70 on the vacant property beside the river then continue to a gravel pit at Mile 66. The trucks load up on gravel and loop back up to Long Lake.

But why re-pave by Long Lake at all? That section of highway has been slated to be moved to the south side of Long Lake since 1993 to “enhance safety, provide climbing lanes and mitigate rock fall”.

Rockfall is a big deal. In 2018, a Federal Highway Administration (FHA) document described rocks as “fist to basketball sized, but often three-foot to ten-foot blocks of rock that impact the travel way”.

Residents can attest to that. One Glacier View resident recalls an incident when a boulder “as big as a refrigerator” barreled in front of him and continued on, clearing a path of trees before sinking into the lake.

The Glacier View Community Council has a Resolution in support of moving the highway to the other side of Long Lake. The construction crew reports daily rockfall at the construction site. They are digging a deep trench along the mountain side of the highway to catch the rocks.

So is the project to move the Glenn Highway to the other side of Long Lake dead? Not according to state and federal highway documents.

The FHA list of projects for 2025-2029 includes nearly a quarter million dollars for survey and design work. According to Steve Morrow of the FHA, the state has taken over the planning and design phase. The state budget for Fiscal Year 2026 included over three million dollars in funding for studies.

The re-pavement is expected to be complete by September 1. For now, residents and travelers can expect delays of up to 45 minutes on their trips to and from Glacier View. For the foreseeable future, travelers have to deal with rockfall. And as for the land at Milepost 70 – there are no plans to develop that property.

You can sponsor Page 2 for a week. For $350, you get mentioned in all the Page 2 readings for the week. This includes 4 spots on air and posts on Facebook, NextDoor, and our website each weekday. Contact page2@radiofreepalmer.org if you’re interested.

Page 2 airs weekdays at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 11:50 a.m., and 6 p.m.

Tune in at 89.7 in Palmer, 89.5 in Sutton, 88.3 in Chickaloon and Glacier View or online at bigcabbageradio.org.

Please support Page 2 News and Big Cabbage Radio. Become a member: Donate today at bigcabbageradio.org.

Kendra Zamzow reported this Page Two article and yours truly, Lee Henrikson produced it. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.

That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Tuesday July 21, 2026.

Image: Fill on the property at Milepost 70. Image credit: Kendra Zamzow.

Join Dr. Jill Valerius and host Lee Henrikson for a 2-part discussion on the pros and cons of Sunscreens.