'The Gamble' tells the story of potatoes in Washington state
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald - Film maker and director David Tanner at the Moses Lake Museum and Art Center on Thursday after a screening of his documentary, ‘The Gamble,’ on potato farming in Washington.
MOSES LAKE — David Tanner had a vision for his film on potato farmers in Washington.
“I wanted to do this before some of the older generation passed away,” he said.
Tanner, a producer and director with Spokane-based North by Northwest Productions, was in town at the Moses Lake Museum and Art Center on Thursday, Oct. 5 for a screening of his documentary “The Gamble,” which is a look into the history of potato growing in Washington state and, in particular, the Columbia Basin.
The film starts at the beginning, with the arrival of Europeans in the Americas and the Spanish discovery of the potato, which was widely eaten throughout the Andean region of South America. It notes how potatoes banished hunger and famine from Europe before being re-exported to North America, where settlers grew them for the same reason everyone else did — they were easy to grow and were a good source of nutrients and calories.
Potatoes arrived in Washington from California, and were one of Washington territory’s earliest exports. During the heyday of the railroads, the film notes the Pacific Northwest Railroad touted its “great big baked potatoes,” all grown in Washington.
Potatoes didn’t arrive in the Columbia Basin until the 1940s, when a New Deal water project made it possible to grow the crop in what was — and still largely is — a desert.
Which is one reason growing potatoes here is a gamble. The first farmers, most of them World War II vets, staked everything on that initial crop. And on subsequent crops as well.
“This story is rich,” Tanner said after the screening. “Potato growers are a unique people. The water came to the Basin so late that the farms are relatively new. I was talking with second- and third-generation farmers rather than fifth and sixth.”
Tanner said he was impressed by the cooperation so many farming families willingly extended.
“People dug through their photo albums, it was really a community effort,” he said.
Tanner, who grew up in the tiny town of Wilbur, said he went to film school to get away from farms. But there’s something about farming in Central Washington that keeps bringing him back.
“I love doing films about farmers,” he said. “Farmers have such rich stories.”