Whatever Happened to America’s Frontier Spirit?

Kenneth Deardorff lives in a cabin in McGrath, Alaska, where he day-trades put options. Around 80, he has a special place in American history because he represents the end of one era and the start of a new one. Deardorff was awarded the last Homestead Act patent, granting him what was once called frontier land. He got it in 1988, after nearly a decade of paperwork. His patent marked not only the official closing of the American frontier but a radical shift in our relationship with risk.

Homesteading was a uniquely American experiment. If you were willing to risk your life, your family’s life, and your limited means, not to mention bears, moose, and disease, the government rewarded you with the most meaningful asset of the 19th century and most of the 20th: land to call your own. Giving people the chance to take a risk and be rewarded for it was the role of government back then. Risk-taking was something people once aspired to, but don’t seem to anymore. By the time Deardorff, a boomer from Southern California, sought to homestead in Alaska, it was considered an eccentric choice.

I was introduced to Deardorff through people I know from my own time in Alaska. More than 25 years ago, I spent a summer in a small fishing village where I sold incense and worked on a food truck grilling halibut. In the 1990s, college-age students often went to Alaska seeking a summer of adventure. Carrying a tattered copy of Into the Wild, we arrived with no plan, and worked all sorts of odd jobs, usually in the fishing industry. The frontier was gone by then, but we at least got to experience this frontier-like adventure for a summer before most of us pursued more conventional and safer lives. I am told even this is rare now. Migrants work the fish canneries, and if young adults do come to Alaska, it is part of an organized program where everything is prearranged and they get college credit.