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‘What’s in a name?’: Reviving a forgotten past — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a multi-part series about Kenai Peninsula places and landmarks that once…

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Features

‘What’s in a Name?’: Reviving a forgotten past — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a multi-part series about Kenai Peninsula places and landmarks that once…

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Community

‘What’s in a name?’: Reviving a forgotten past — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Place names can be ephemeral and can fade for myriad reasons. Sometimes offensive names are replaced…

Tern Lake, formerly Mud Lake, sits alongside the junction of the Seward and Sterling highways. (Photo by Clark Fair)

Community

‘What’s in a name?’: Reviving a forgotten past — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a series of articles concerning places and landmarks on the Kenai…

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Community

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Seasoned Seward outdoorsmen Ben Swesey and William Weaver left home on Oct. 15, 1917 in Swesey’s…

John P. Holman poses with his first Dall sheep ram, shot in 1917 while being guided by Ben Swesey in the Kenai Mountains. (Photo from Holman’s 1933 hunting memoir)

Community

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Seven years after his friend William Weaver nearly drowned in Kenai Lake while returning from guiding…

This image is the only confirmed photograph of guide Ben Swesey discovered by the author. The photo, from John P. Holman’s 1933 hunting memoir, “Sheep and Bear Trails,” shows Swesey working to remove the cape from a Dall sheep ram shot by Holman in 1917.

Community

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Danger was inherent in the job. Although his fellow hunting guide, William Weaver, had narrowly escaped…

This excerpt from a U.S. Geological Survey map shows the approximate location of Snug Harbor on lower Kenai Lake. It was in this area that William Weaver nearly drowned in 1910.

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Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Michigan’s hard-luck Swesey clan sprang into existence because of the misfortunes of the Basom clan. All…

This is the gravesite of Ben Swesey’s mother, Eliza, in Vermillion, South Dakota. (Photo from findagrave.com)

Community

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 1

More than a hundred years after Ben Swesey and Bill Weaver steered an outboard-powered dory out of Resurrection…

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Community

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 8

Over the past 50 years or more, the City of Kenai has attempted on several occasions to capitalize…

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Community

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 7

AUTHOR’S NOTE: After the agricultural experiment station in Kenai closed May 1, 1908, Alaska station supervisor C.C. Georgeson…

Pictured here with trophies of his trade is P.F. “Frenchy” Vian, a bit of a hustler who lived in Kenai for about 20 years and took advantage of opportunities, fairly or not, when they were presented to him. One of those opportunities involved the defunct agricultural experiment station at Kenai. (Photo courtesy of the Viani Family Collection)

Community

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 6

AUTHOR’S NOTE: By 1907, the end of the line had nearly arrived for Kenai’s agricultural experiment station, which…

Prof. C.C. Georgeson, circa 1910s, inspects an apple tree on one of his Alaska agricultural experiment stations. (Image from the Rasmuson Library historical archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks)

Community

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A presidential executive order in January 1899 had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian…