Which area is associated with the Great Depression-era relocation program in Alaska?

• A. Copper River Basin
• B. Alaska Range
• C. Matanuska Valley, Palmer area
• D. Chugach Mountains

Answer: (C)

The situation tests knowledge of where the Great Depression-era relocation effort in Alaska was centered. In the 1930s, a federal project moved families from the Midwest to Alaska to create a planned farming community, known as the Matanuska Colony. They were brought to the Matanuska Valley near Palmer, where housing, schools, and infrastructure were built to support a new agricultural community. That emphasis on establishing a farming settlement in the Matanuska Valley near Palmer is what ties this relocation program to that particular area. The other regions—Copper River Basin, the Alaska Range, and the Chugach Mountains—are important Alaska regions, but they were not the site of this New Deal relocation colony.