'Sarah Palin country? It's Deliverance in ice,' says documentary-maker Nick Broomfield

By Nick Broomfield

Last updated at 10:22 PM on 10th December 2011

When the documentary maker flew into the US to make a film about Sarah Palin, half his crew were arrested and deported. And things went downhill from there, as his colourful diary records...

Deliverance country: Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin

OUR COLD WELCOME

October 24, 2010: Weve arrived or I have. Half my film crew have been arrested and deported. Everything is going fine at Seattle airport until they find out we are doing a film about Sarah Palin. The authorities go mad. They search our bags and detain my two researchers.

Sarah, 22, is subjected to a urine test against her wishes just in case she is pregnant and tries to get citizenship by giving birth on US soil. Her colleague Mark is spreadeagled against the wall and given a rectal search before being handcuffed. The 25-year-old spends the night on a filthy floor littered with cigarette butts. They are both sent back to England, supposedly because they dont have the right visas.

My cover for the documentary is blown. Discretion was the key. But thanks to our airport kerfuffle, the Wasilla branch of Homeland Security an organisation dedicated to protecting America from terrorist activity (are my films that bad?) has been told all about us. Instead of slowly ingratiating myself into Sarah Palins home community, I have landed in a blaze of notoriety.

As I lie on my bed in the deserted Best Western Inn with a view of the frozen Lake Lucile and Sarahs peach-coloured, two- storey home looming tantalisingly in the distance, I am pretty dejected. There isnt even a mini bar.

METHS IN THE ! MADNESS< /span>

October 31: We still need somewhere to live but our fame is making that difficult. Wasilla has two estate agents. One has thrown me out of the office. The other offers a big, rundown house clad in brown timber. The heating system is bust. It is so hot upstairs that we sleep with the windows open. Downstairs remains at minus 25 degrees, whatever we do.

Strip-lighting hums constantly, illuminating the puce-pink walls. Stained white shag pile, a greasy microwave and filthy windows make the house, in short, disgusting. But it is the only place left to us.

There is one amazing bonus. There are plugs everywhere, perfect for a film crew. This is because the house has been a base for drug-making. The former residents have tarnished the oven with meths, part of the manufacturing process.

Wasilla is Alaskas methamphetamine capital. This little town of 8,000 people and 76 churches has the unlikely distinction of supplying most of the state with illegal drugs. At first, driving past the evangelical billboards, its hard to believe. But when I learn that Wasilla holds the state record for child abuse, incest and suicide for young gay men, it makes more sense. The magical Talkeetna mountains surrounding the town make it look like Gods Own Country, but all those superstores and the freeway plunging through the town have messed things up.

We have requested an interview with Sarah and her lawyer has not yet turned us down!

MEETING MOM AND DAD

November 7: The extreme environment is beautiful but tough. You feel the ice going into your lungs as you breathe. Daylight starts at 10am and finishes at 2pm. To stay healthy, we hit Dinalis gym. Every morning, at 6.15am, we don shorts and jump into our Ford Focus, the tyres studded with nails for the icy roads.

At 7am, gangs of little kids aged between seven and 12 arrive for multiple somersaults, cartwheels and flips. The vastly overweight rub wobbly shoulders with wannabe Olympians.

Two very large ladies ar! rive at 7.30am every day and snaffle the only two changing rooms. If we dont finish by then, we have to wait ages for a shower. A born-again Christian called Dick tries to chat to us on each of our visits. He wants us to renew our faith in the Lord.

My film team has been allowed back through customs and we can finally start work. Still no word from Sarahs lawyer. But there is an encouraging welcome from her parents, who invite me in for a chat.

CHARM AND EYELASHES

November 14: Were still trying to get an interview with Sarah and time is running out. So we fly to Houston in Texas, where she is signing books. We queue up and ask her directly. She is charm itself. I ask her for an interview, she flaps her eyelashes and says: You betcha, I could.

Destroyed: Once-pretty Wasilla was wrecked by planners

TOO SCARED TO TALK

November 21: Not everyone finds Sarah quite so charming. Many are frightened to talk. Sarah, a former Mayor of Wasilla and vice-presidential candidate, is very influential. Friends and supporters have been banned from speaking. But there are a few folk who have fallen out with her and dont mind saying so.

We throw a dinner party and invite the local pastor, some of Sarahs old acquaintances, and a neighbour and sworn enemy of Sarah called Colleen Cottle.

We rustle up pork loin as a change from our all-moose diet. Moose is delicious; like venison, only better. But theres a lot of it. A single moose keeps a family for an entire winter. Our guests bring moose sausages.

The conversation is tortured. One of the wives gets annoyed. Her husband had talked to us for the film and, coincidentally, had lost his job. Word spread that we were responsible for his unemployment. The wife walks out. The night wears on. We drink a! n awful lot of whisky.

Sarahs lawyers are still prevaricating. But her father, Chuck Heath, has, miraculously, agreed to an interview. Chuck is a former science teacher, athletics coach and all-round Alaskan.

FEET THAT SPEAK VOLUMES

Icy: Antler's sold by Sarah's dad

November 28: We find a dishevelled labrador in next doors yard, howling. We take it in and give it a name: Knik after the local river.

But the hound soon gets us into hot water with Sarahs father. Chuck asks where I got it and I blurt out that we are living near Colleen. His attitude changes. We have fraternised with the enemy.

The only way I can get Chuck to speak to me is to buy moose and reindeer antlers from his mountainous collection. They are $150 a pop. He is getting less communicative as the days go by.

But he does reveal something more powerful than his words ever could. Chuck points to a picture on his wall of some mangled feet. They are his.

He explains he once took part in a marathon across the snow and that his toes filled up with pus. Luckily, he had packed a hand drill and bored through his digits to release the fluid. He finished the race.

You understand a lot about Sarahs unbelievable drive and grit when you see the picture of her fathers feet.

BIKINIS AND REDNECKS

December 5: We set off on snow- mobiles to a restaurant called Islander Lodge. You can tell it is a classy joint by the fake palms and laminated menus. Another night we visit the Bikini Bar, opened to cater for workers building a nearby prison. A 22-year-old brunette opens the window and enquires: How can I help you today?, wearing nothing but two scraps of fabric over her very generous, goose-bumped chest. In such a religious community, it is hil- ariously incongruous.

We go to a bar ac! ross the way. It is full of bearded, beer-guzzling rednecks. All heads turn as we walk in. Silence descends. Our researcher is not unattractive and the guys eyes are out on stalks. It is like Deliverance on ice. We dont go back.

THE FAT OF THE LAND

December 12: There is obesity here on a scale I have never seen before. The community is divided between those who hunt, fish and hike, and those who just eat. In the local Target superstore, the aisles are super-wide to cater for people so enormously large they need mobility scooters. Some come to Alaska for the wild beauty of its outdoors; others hide in their cabins and live off food stamps.

JESUS'S GARDEN... RUINED

December 19: It is time to go back to Britain. Its clear that Sarah has no intention of giving us an interview. We have made dozens of applications to speak to her. It is all the more frustrating that we have been on our best behaviour.

To while away the long dark nights, I have been reading an old black and white book about the formative years of this strange little town. In Early Days In Wasilla, Louise Potter writes of the pioneering spirit, the magnificence of the mountains and the wild flowers. She calls it Jesuss garden. That was before the oil rush of the Seventies and Eighties, when Wasilla swung sharply to the evangelical Right.

I genuinely admire Sarahs celebration of the outdoors. Yet as Mayor of Wasilla, she deregulated planning laws to allow the complete destruction of what once had been a very pretty town.

Wasilla, says Sarahs father, has not exactly turned out the way I would have liked.

Elusive: The main source of protein in Wasilla is moose meat

GIVING IT ONE LAST SHOT

March 2011: We are back in the States. We need to finish ! the film and I am determined to speak to Sarah. The snow has melted and Wasilla looks very different. I cant say that its improved. A few people are pleased to see us. Most are not.

There is growing criticism of Sarah after the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Texas. Sarah had published a map placing the crosshairs of a gun over Democratic areas supporting President Obamas healthcare plans. Mrs Giffords, a Democrat, had warned there would be consequences. And there were. She was shot.

We decide that the only way of reaching Sarah is to attend a rally. We find one billed as a question and answer session. The questions are all scripted. With some difficulty, I shout: Do you think your political career is over?

This is met with an audible gasp from the packed auditorium. Sarah looks startled. And I am escorted from the building.

Sarahs corporate backers could hardly be described as friends of the common man but my ears are still ringing with the cheers from her fans as I am ejected. And I know there are millions of ordinary Americans just like them, intoxicated by her weird mix of ditzy charm and hardline polemic. The national mood is against her.

But Ive no doubt she will be cashing in on their support for some time yet.

As told to Georgea Blakey

Elusive: Nick Broomfield failed to gain an audience with Sarah Palin