Members of the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) Assembly have drafted an ordinance that would rebrand a historical park in the center of the Golden Heart City. It comes amid a yearslong dispute over Pioneer Park’s name.
The measure proposes changing the name back to “Alaskaland” at a cost of $50,000, and it’s making its first appearance on the assembly agenda at Thursday’s meeting.
“Alaskaland” last signified the 44-acre park on the banks of the Chena River in Fairbanks more than two decades ago – officially, at least.
“A lot of people still refer to it as ‘Alaskaland.’ They refuse to refer to it as ‘Pioneer Park,’” Assemblymember Liz Reeves said in a phone interview Monday.
Reeves and Assemblymember Scott Crass are cosponsoring the ordinance to restore the former moniker.
The park’s history spans about 60 years, with the location playing host to the Alaska 67 Centennial Exposition, an event that celebrated a century since the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia. For decades afterward, “Alaskaland” stuck as the name for the site of that 1967 expo.
But it changed to “Pioneer Park” in 2001 to “more accurately reflect the historical importance of the [p]ark and reduce the expectation of a theme park.” That’s according to the borough’s website, which recounts how the Pioneers of Alaska helped form the park after requesting land from the state in the early 1960s for creating a tourist attraction focused on displaying Alaska historical exhibits.
In 2021, the borough assembly adopted the Pioneer Park Master Plan, with the document aiming to assess the park’s current status and “to build a vision for its future.”
Crass said the proposal to revive "Alaskaland" pulls from that document, and he said the measure started taking shape a few months ago.
“The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – their editorial board – wrote an editorial, an opinion piece, that said ‘Hey, remember this master plan? Why hasn’t anything been done on it?'” Crass said in a phone interview Monday, adding that he began looking into the idea after that.
The local newspaper published the editorial in July, saying, in part, that “[a] good plan without follow-through is just a very expensive suggestion.”
The opinion piece doesn’t mention the name change, but the 2021 plan says the park name has proved “controversial.” Drawing on public feedback, it says many people prefer “Alaskaland” and that some community members felt calling the location “Pioneer Park” alienates the region’s Alaska Native people.
That’s one of the sentiments the new ordinance responds to, according to Crass.
“It’s important to recognize that, for a lot of members in our community, it being for pioneers speaks to something entirely outside of the experience of being an Alaskan,” he said.
In the section on the name controversy, the 2021 park plan also repeated part of the rationale from the early 2000s, saying that the name "Alaskaland” has a “false connotation of a theme park.”
Crass, though, said he thinks modern methods for accessing information make that a non-issue.
“This problem doesn’t exist anymore, where there’s a misunderstanding by name alone. Now we have photos and we look at places, before we ever get there, online,” he said.
Today, according to the plan, an estimated 350,000 people visit Pioneer Park annually. It features museums, exhibits, and the SS Nenana, a large wooden sternwheeler that’s a national historic landmark. There’s also a playground on the park’s grounds, and it has restaurants and other activities in the summer.
Reeves said the name of such a central location makes up a part of the community’s identity – and that she wants to keep gathering feedback.
“If people have opinions, I would love to hear it, because this is a big thing. And it’s not something that I’m taking lightly, and I definitely want to hear people’s input,” she said.
As written, the ordinance would appropriate $50,000 for the rebrand to “Alaskaland,” if approved. Reeves said that primarily would be to replace the large sign at the entrance and that the borough administration said other materials could phase in the new name over time.
The ordinance is currently set to be referred to the FNSB Parks and Rec Commission, with a recommendation due back to the assembly by late February, according to Thursday’s agenda.