Palmer group restores Colony Days name after backlash erupts over rebranding campaign

PALMER — A new name for Palmer’s Colony Days summer festival was quickly reversed Sunday following an uproar over the lack of public participation and broad opposition to the idea.

The Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce board voted unanimously to restore the name in emergency session Saturday night after the outcry that included at least a few threats of violence and attracted more than 6,200 signatures on a petition.

Board members also rescinded a decision last year to change the name of Colony Christmas, Palmer’s winter festival, to Hometown Holidays.

Colony Days, first held in 1936, is a popular three-day summer festival that draws thousands to Palmer for a celebration of the city’s roots in a 1930s New Deal farm colony.

The chamber on Thursday unveiled the new name chosen largely without public or business input: Braided River Festival, chosen by the nonprofit’s board to make the event more inclusive of the region’s Alaska Native people and general history by referring to the divided channels of the nearby Matanuska River, officials say.

But it was a mistake to rebrand Colony Days based on feedback from a small segment of chamber members and do so internally, “and we heard it loud and clear,” Ailis Vann, the chamber’s executive director and sole full-time staffer, said in a statement Sunday.

“Our attempt to present a full package to everyone at once came across as not being transparent and honest, and that was never the intent,” the statement said. “We regret the hurt this controversy has caused our community, and our members.”

The chamber had received about 400 calls and emails by Monday. Most of the comments were civil, Vann said in an interview, but not all.

“We had several voice mails left on our phones that were saying ‘Watch your back,’ ” she said.

As of Monday, three members of the 11-member chamber board had resigned since the uproar began.

Leaders of the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council in a statement Monday described as “disheartening” the backlash in the community and on social media over the change.

“We don’t believe it was meant to be dismissive of history, but rather telling of a more complete history inclusive of local indigenous peoples, and a welcoming space for all peoples,” Chief Gary Harrison and council executive director Lisa Wade said. “We would like to thank the Palmer Chamber of Commerce, and we are sorry for any ill will that was directed toward them as a result of their well-intentioned efforts.”

In a flurry of social media posts Friday and Saturday, critics criticized the lack of public process. Some attacked what they called the chamber’s “woke” mentality. A meme circulating over the weekend showed a Colony-era barn with the words “Don’t cancel our culture”.

Palmer businesses stated their allegiance to the Colony-branded events. Downtown Palmer boutique Northern Lilly made “Keep Colony Day” T-shirts in opposition and was still selling them on Monday.

Carol Kenley, a 67-year-old peony grower and agriculture supporter who lives near Palmer, grew up going to Colony Days and cheered the decision to change the name back.

Kenley said she felt “sick and sad” to hear about the change on Friday, and asked others to speak out too. A Friday chamber update sticking by the names angered people even more.

“It felt like this was part of their strategy: just get over it, you’ll be happy with what we do. Just outwait the crazies and then we’ll be OK,” she said. “I don’t think it was crazies. It wasn’t a mob. It was just really people being frustrated with someone taking total control of something they cared about.”

City of Palmer officials say they also weren’t aware the change was in the works.

The lack of public involvement was the main theme of “all the angry calls” especially among businesses that are chamber members, Vann said.

“We knew it was going to be rough,” she said. “But if we would have even thought it was going to be half as bad as it was they would have done it differently.”

Some critics called members of the chamber’s volunteer board at their workplaces or on cell phones.

The board included two members who joined this month after the naming decision was done and had no say in the decision, Vann said.

“So the fact that any of them were treated the way they were is unacceptable,” she said. “But the people that had nothing to do with it, that was really hard.”

Three board members including one new member resigned after the decision was announced, she said, declining to identify those people.

The Dena’ina and Ahtna Athabascans were the first people to live in the Matanuska Valley. Palmer namesake and merchant George Palmer, known as the first White settler, established a trading station on the Matanuska River in 1880. Miners became among the first Palmer settlers around 1915.

The city grew into a bustling community only 1935 when a Roosevelt Administration program in the wake of the Great Depression relocated 200 midwestern families to etch farms from glacial soil in what became one of Alaska’s prime agricultural areas.

The impetus for the Colony events name change began in November 2020, when a small group of tribal representatives as well as community and chamber members. approached the chamber to “express they had issues with the name colony and how the festival felt exclusive and who the festival represented,” Vann said.

The chamber held a land acknowledgement at last year’s Colony Days festival and invited concerned members to join a special events committee.

The statement from the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council said it last year tried to combine a tribal celebration and health fair held by the Chickaloon and Knik councils with Colony Days, which fell on the same days.

“Some people unfortunately though thought we were no longer hosting our traditional Tribal Celebration because of the lack of tribal name recognition,” the statement said. “The change in name proposed by the Palmer Chamber of Commerce was an opportunity to be more reflective of the joining together of the history and culture of the three groups just like the Matanuska and Knik join together in a braided river.”

The board came up with new names after “hours and hours of discussion,” Vann said. The “braided river” idea was a reference to a geological term but also a symbol of different tributaries coming together in the same channel.

Vann got a $15,000 grant from Mat-Su Health Foundation and the board agreed to contract Anchorage-based public relations firm Blueprint Alaska to help launch the rebranding effort after the new names were selected.

Now the firm is donating its services to the chamber, Vann said Monday. She is returning the grant to the foundation.

Blueprint Alaska president Sarah Erkmann Ward declined to comment on Monday. A health foundation representative was not available for comment.

Colony Days is scheduled for June 10-12 and Colony Christmas for Dec. 9-11.

The chamber starts planning for Colony Days next week, Vann said. But first, this week’s priority is responding to all the members who reached out.

“We’ve got a lot of really fun stuff planned this year for people. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” she said. “Now we have more work ahead of us to regain the trust of our community, our membership.”