5/15/23: Alaska's Kenai Peninsula Towns

Click the map to enlarge it so you can see where we drove that day.

As I mentioned previously, there are only two highways out of Anchorage: the Glenn Highway heading north and the Seward Highway heading south, so tourists would have to work pretty hard to get lost! Steven and I pointed the car south again on the Seward Highway, retracing our steps for a bit before exploring the Kenai Peninsula on the Sterling Highway, considered the heart of the peninsula.

As we again drove along the Turnagain Arm, I remembered the guide on the bus trip from Whittier to Anchorage telling us how dangerous it was near the shore. When people get stuck in the quicksand, they must receive immediate assistance to be extracted.  

Soon after entering the Kenai Peninsula, we encountered many dead trees, but we didn't know what had caused the devastation.

When Steven and I began traveling internationally together over a decade ago, I wish I had thought to compile pictures of the various animal crossing signs, as that would have been a fun post! Some people are lucky enough to catch sight of moose, mountain goats, and Dall sheep near the road, but not us. It may be just as well that we didn't come across a moose that often dart unpredictably into the road, as a half-ton moose would likely do as much damage to our car as we'd do to it!

For once, we were in no rush, so we decided to stop in the tiny community of Cooper Landing that sat at the junction of where Kenai Lake flows out into the open Kenai River. The picturesque outpost was named for Joseph Cooper, a miner who worked the region in the 1880s.

If you fancy yourself as a salmon fisherman - sorry, I just can't say 'fisher' -  Cooper Landing has one of the most iconic salmon fishing streams in Alaska, if not the country. Just a few miles away, the Russian River, which flows into the Kenai to join its rush to the sea. It is also renowned for salmon fishing. Since we're not into fishing, the well-regarded Cooper Landing Historical Society Museum was more our speed. 

I like to think that the "Catch and Release" referred to the salmon, and not to people!

I was mightily impressed that the 300 people in Copper Landing could support the museum, which was housed in two historic buildings, one, a 1920s cabin that served as the Copper Landing Post Office for almost 40 years, and the other, the local schoolhouse for nearly 50 years. 

To our dismay, however, it was too early in the tourist season for the museum to be open. That was something we hadn't considered when we booked the first cruise of the year up the Inland Passage from Vancouver to Alaska, to be followed by a two-week road trip through much of the state. We hadn't realized that the sights we'd hoped to see the day before in Eklutna and Palmer, and now Cooper Landing, were closed because of the state's very short summer tourist season.

This was our first view of the Russian River. John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early wilderness advocate, known as the Father of the National Park for his role in preserving America's wild lands and co-founding the Sierra Club. Muir was quoted at the museum for saying, "I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found was really going in."

The shed housed an enormous cross-section of a Sitka spruce, estimated to be about 600 years old. I didn't verify that by counting the tree rings, though!

Steven and I would also have liked to stop at the nearby K'Beq' Cultural Site, maintained by the Kenaitize Tribe, the original Dena'ina people in the area, but it was also closed. Too bad we couldn't learn about their traditional way of life before the flood of sport fishing took over.

Once we left the area, the sight of the effects of a devastating fire was evident as far as our eyes could see in every direction. The Swan Lake Fire was a large lightning-caused wildfire that burned between Sterling and Cooper Landing in the peninsula's Kenai National Wildlife Refuge ten months before we visited. The fire displayed extreme behavior, including burning in the tundra above timberline and burning over rock piles. In less than 24 hours, the fire jumped the highway and the Kenai River and overran access roads to campgrounds. The Sterling Highway, the only road access to the Kenai Peninsula towns of Sterling, Homer, Soldotna, and Kenai, shut down for more than a day.

We had been surrounded by magnificent mountain ranges for days, so the sudden sight of flat terrain along the Sterling Highway was a little jarring.

Arriving about an hour later on the outskirts of Soldotna, we noticed that gas prices were $3.79 a gallon, the same as in both Anchorage and Denver at the time. By comparison, two-and-a-half years later, we're now paying only $2.19, and that's not even at the cheapest gas stations in town. How does that compare to gas in your neck of the woods?

We were in luck as the Soldotna Homestead Museum had only opened that morning for the season - phew, that was cutting it a bit close. Soldotna's claim to fame was claiming the world-record king salmon, a 97-pound, 4-ounce monster! Soldotna was first opened to homesteading in 1947, with preference given to World War II vets who had to slog in on foot from Moose Pass, 70 miles away, or on foot, after arriving on the barge from Kenai, 12 miles away. 

Veterans could use their years in service toward the "proving up" requirements." Some vets had served in Alaska during the war and wanted to return to stay. Others arrived driven by a sense of adventure for hunting and fishing opportunities, or possibly to test themselves. Settling together, they became a community, and through hard work, the city of Soldotna.

Pardon the glare, but this was a replica of the $7.2 million check the United States used to purchase Alaska from Russia in 1867. 

Before 1927, Alaska was still a territory, meaning that the federal government controlled Alaska and its citizens lacked voting representation in Washington. As they had no flag of their own, Alaskans had flown only the American flag since Alaska was purchased from Russia. But Territorial Governor George Parks believed having a flag would help Alaska become a state. The Alaska American Legion held a contest open to all Alaska children in grades 7-12 to design Alaska's new flag.

In 1926, 13-year-old Aleut Benny Benson, born in the small fishing community of Chignik on the south shore of the Alaska Peninsula, designed the eight stars of gold on a field of blue flag that flies over Alaska. His father was a Swedish fisherman, and his mother was an Aleut Russian. When he was three, his mother died from pneumonia, and soon after, the family's house burned down. These tragic events forced his father to separate Benson from his two siblings. Benson and his younger brother were sent to the orphanage in Ulalaska, where hundreds of Aleut orphans lived, before it was moved to a larger facility in Seward, our destination for the next two nights. 

Benson created a scene familiar to every Alaska child who looked skyward, the seven stars of the Big Dipper and the guiding light of the North Star. He explained in his design submission to the judges that the "blue field represents the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaska flower. The North Star is for the future of the state, the most northerly in the Union. The dipper is for the Great Bear - symbolizing strength." How insightful, especially for someone so young.

Benson's creativity inspired his fellow Indigenous people, who had only received citizenship and the right to vote four years before Benson's win. When Alaska achieved statehood in 1959, Benson's territorial flag became the official state flag. 

Outside the museum was a replica of a homesteader's cabin and a shed.

Next to it was the Slikok Valley School, the last log school built in Alaska's territorial days. It was located about 4 miles from Soldotna, but it served only 2 years, beginning in 1958.

The original Coleman lanterns were still hanging in the school, as were the plywood blackboard, the coat rack, and the bookshelf. The electrical cable spool where the children hung their lunch buckets, the students' desks, and chairs were the same as the originals.

Tommy Jo Corr, a student, was quoted as saying, "Our supplies came from Juneau (the capital). Each student had a text. We had enough pencils and paper. One year, we put on a play. They acted out a story from a book. We performed it out-of-doors."

S/he added, " School started at 8:30. It was often dark when the children arrived and almost dark when they started walking home again. The first-graders should have been dismissed earlier, but they waited to walk in order to walk home with their siblings. The big kids had more sense of what to do in case of moose on the trail."

I swear I remember these images and text from my old school days, way back when in Ottawa!

Even if you're not living in the US, I hope you'll find this as amusing as I did after clicking on the state names so you can read them more easily. Six Colorados would fit inside Alaska!

The only reason to stop at the Soldotna Visitor Center was to gaze admiringly at the humongous salmon caught by Soldotna resident Les Anderson out of the Kenai River on May 17, 1985, in Kenai. When he fished it out of the river, he threw it in his truck and didn't weigh it for seven hours. The Kenai River in May wasn't known for large king salmon, as the typical fish ran 20 to 30 pounds. Anderson wasn't after a record-setting fish. He went fishing because he loved to fish! His record still stands, by the way.

A western spur took us to Kenai, described as a "rare bird, a major Alaska town with minimal tourism." The Chapel of St. Nicholas, a National Historic Landmark, was built around 1906 atop the grave of the Kenai Peninsula's first resident priest, Igumen (Abbot) Nicholai, also known as Father Nicholas. 

With the assistance of two others, Father Nikolai brought the smallpox vaccine to the Kenai Peninsula and vaccinated many people against the deadly disease. On December 19, St. Nicholas Day, a memorial dedication or moleiben is held to remember this beloved priest and his assistants. 

Although it appeared quite old, the chapel was twelve years younger than the neighboring Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox  Church, the first Russian Orthodox Church on mainland Alaska. Church services are still regularly held in the National Historic Landmark.

Across the street was the Parish House Rectory, built in 1881 or 1887, depending on your sources. Believed to be the oldest building on the Kenai Peninsula, it has been used as a residence since its inception. 

Not far from the beautiful churches in Old Town Kenai was the surprising Kenai Beach, a sweeping stretch of sand. If we'd been there in the latter part of July, what a sight we would have had of hundreds of frantic fishermen "dipnet" to catch sockeye salmon at the mouth of the Kenai River. What a kick I'd get watching the fishermen wearing chest waders and walking into waist-deep water, or deeper, with each one pushing a giant net out front that typically has a five-foot-wide hoop and a handle that, in extreme cases, is more than 20-feet long! The event is only open to those who have lived in Alaska for the previous year.

A view of Mt. Redoubt, the volcano that erupted steam and ash in December 1989:

Who would have thought we'd be treated to the sight of a stunning aquamarine-colored body of water here in Alaska - certianly not us!

More eye-popping shots en route to Seward:

Passing through Cooper Landing once again, we reached Tern Junction at the intersection of the Seward and Sterling Highways and drove over Moose Pass and then south toward Seward, the end of the Seward Highway.

For mural lovers like us, Seward (pronounced Soo-word) was the cat's meow, because of its many murals. Even with only 2,800 residents, there were more than two dozen public paintings in the quaint little fishing town. Tourism is big business in the town located on Resurrection Bay, at the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park.

We saw the first one, Kenai Fjords National Park, as we entered Seward.

Seward was officially designated the Mural Capital of Alaska in 2008, upon the completion of its 12th colorful mural. This achievement resulted from the enthusiasm and energy of a group of local artists and art lovers who began volunteering their talents in 1999 to paint the town!

Mount Marathon:

Kenai Fjords, Where Mountains, Ice, and Oceans Meet:

Postcards of the Past:

Fog Woman:

The mural, Raven the Creator, described the world in the beginning as all water. As Raven flew above, he saw Salmon Woman swimming below. Curious, Raven swooped down to talk to her, became enamored of her, and asked her to marry him. She only agreed if he created land, which he did with the assistance of other sea creatures. Sand was obtained from the sea to create land and islands, so that Salmon Woman could come ashore to dry her hair in the wind.

The mural was called The Iditarod Trail, which I described in the previous post. In the winter of 1908, a gold strike on Otter Creek, a tributary of the Iditarod River, prompted the Alaska Road Commission to construct a trail from Seward to the Iditarod Mining District and then on to Nome. In 1910-11, nearly 1,000 miles of trail were surveyed, marked, and cleared. 

The Iditarod, initially called the Seward to Nome Mail Trail, was a winter trail, and dog teams and sleds were the most popular means of travel. People, gold, mail, and freight flowed up and down the trail until the 1920s, when mining declined, and planes began to replace dog teams. The annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race mostly follows the old trail and commemorates the critical role sled dogs played in opening the Alaska frontier. Congress designated the Iditarod Trail a National Historic Trail, something I never knew existed before this. 

Wildflower Garden was the lovely result of the Seward Mural Society's Mural in a Day 2006.

Pony Cove: 

While we were on the mural hunt, we spotted the handsome Van Gilder Hotel. Built in 1916 as an office building, it was named for the Idahoan who financed it, and it became a hotel in 1921. Over the decades, the hotel changed hands several times and even hosted a legendary, ongoing pinochle game. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Next post: Exploring Kenai Fjords National Park by ship!

Posted on December 11th, 2025, from an overcast but warm day in Denver, where the temperature was in the high 60s. Last week's snowstorm, which resulted in icy roads and sidewalks too slick to walk on with ease, seems like an almost distant memory now! Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.