Never trust Google Maps. Matt and I are lost somewhere behind Big Lake. The road narrows, takes a turn, and narrows again. The sunlight filters through the trees, slightly melting the snowy road and turning it into an ice rink. This cannot be the way to Point MacKenzie... there is no way the farm trucks could negotiate this one-lane twisting road. We are looking for a place to turn around when we come to a four way intersection with a lone road sign... we are on the right road! So we keep going, deeper into the forest. Do people really farm out here? We haven't seen another soul for ages.

We are going to Point MacKenzie to check out a 300 acre dairy farm that is for sale. Not because we want to become dairy farmers, but because there are so few farms in Alaska, and we want to find a way to keep this one afloat. Alaskans get 98% of their food from out-of-state. Most of it comes from California or further and relies on fossil fuels to get here. If oil prices shoot up again, it won't be long before food prices are also sky high and we are paying $20 for a gallon of milk like they do in remote Alaskan communities right now.

Suddenly, the narrow road dumps us out onto a wide, plowed and sanded stretch of road. Ah-ha, we must have taken the scenic route! Somehow we find Holstien Road, where the farm is, but there are no addresses. Just a long straight open road with a few scattered farmhouses. We stop at one to ask directions. They must not get too many visitors. The dogs are going crazy, and the kids are cowering behind their mother as she gives us directions... "go back to the crossroads, take a left, it is about half a mile down on the right hand side. There is a big blue barn and cows everywhere, you can't miss it."

We finally pull into the driveway and park in front of the milking barn. We can see some cows in the barn beyond and a woman with some mini coolers is filling quarts from a big steel tank. The farmer drives down the long slick driveway from his house to come meet us. Gareth spills out of his truck and introduces himself, the woman from the cow-share program collecting milk, and his brother who helps him with the farm. We go up to the house first and he introduces us to his wife and two little girls. They sit us down and feed us brownies and fresh milk. Neither Matt nor I ever drink milk, but this milk is so delicious it makes my head spin.

Point MacKenzie sits across the Cook Inlet from Anchorage, and there has been multiple proposals to build a bridge connecting the two, driving up land prices. A few years ago Matanuska Maid, the state-run creamery folded amid lots of controversy and the farmers had no outlet for their milk. A private creamery was scrambling to come online, but meanwhile the cows still had to be milked, the mortgage had to be paid, and many of the farmers couldn't survive. The owner of this farm decided to go to greener pastures and move to Minnesota, where the dairy industry isn't quite so political or volitile. He sold his cows to Gareth and leased him the land. When Gareth took over the only outlet for his milk was a cow-share program in which people bought a share of a cow and recieved raw milk in return. That way they aren't actually purchasing raw milk, which is illegal. The cow-share program distributed milk from two cows, the rest of the milk from his herd of almost 100 cows he had to dump on his fields.

Gareth is showing us his hens and his pigs and telling us story after story about the ups and downs of just this one year he has been farming. He has formed a great relationship with the Wonderbread factory in town picking up their stale bread, but the moose tear up the hay bales he has put up. He is so passionate and wants to see this farm continue. He is one of only three dairy farms supplying milk to the new creamery. But the loan will default in June if the owner can't sell it. And it would be really difficult for a dairy farm to operate in Alaska with a mortgage as high as what the farmer needs to sell it for.

On the way home we take the fast road back to Wasilla and talk about all the ideas swimming in our heads. One option is to form a cooperative, with at least 100 people fronting the money for the dairy farm. But I know that if I invest $10, 000 I will want more than just milk as a return. So we need to diversify the farm, think outside the box. How amazing would it be to apply our permaculture principles and watch the yields multiply? With 100 people not only putting their money into it but also their energy and creativity. It could be the new model for farming. Everyone owns a share in their own farm and works together with the other owners to give them the yields they desire. Not only food, but education, building materials, wool, all the things that city dwellers can't provide for themselves.

Who's in?