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Keith McCullagh is photographed poling a raft down the Kenai River in 1911 during a forest survey. (U.S. Forestry Department photo by John “Jack” Brown)

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Mostly separate lives: The union and disunion of Nellie and Keith — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Keith McCullagh and Nellie Dee Crabb had married in June 1915 in the fledgling city of…

Photo courtesy of the Peggy Arness Collection Nellie McCullagh feeds a pen-raised fox on her family’s farm in Kachemak Bay, in 1922.

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Mostly separate lives: The union and disunion of Nellie and Keith — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Forest ranger Louis Keith McCullagh and school teacher Nellie Dee Crabb had married in June 1915…

Nellie Dee “Jean” Crabb as a young woman. (Public photo from ancestry.com)

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Mostly separate lives: The union and disunion of Nellie and Keith — Part 1

A front-page headline in the Cordova Daily Times of Feb. 25, 1915, called newly engaged Nellie Crabb and…

This illustration by John Fretz accompanied an article entitled “Anne: A True Story” in the November 1978 issue of Alaskafest, an in-flight magazine for Alaska Airlines. The story, designed as a romance, also concerned the death of Mitch Gyde, who drowned in Tustumena Lake in September 1975.

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 8

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were 1965 and 1975.…

These two pages from Kaknu, the 1976 yearbook for Kenai Central High School, were dedicated to KCHS teacher James Brewer, who drowned with his son Byron and Soldotna teacher Stephen Koch in August 1975. The man smoking the pipe and standing with moose antlers is Brewer; his son is in front of him.

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 7

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were 1965 and 1975.…

Kerri and John Dolph on the porch of their cabin in Clark, Colorado, in 1975, shortly before they headed to Alaska for a honeymoon adventure. (Photo courtesy of Kerri Copper)

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 6

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were 1965 and 1975.…

The log shed at Blake’s Place on the north shore on Tustumena Lake, near the outlet of Indian Creek. Kerri Dolph holed up here for several days after the death of her husband John. (Photo by Clark Fair, 1985)

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were 1965 and 1975.…

This is the cabin on Pipe Creek, along the north shore of Tustumena Lake, where Harold Galliett sought shelter after surviving a commercial airlines crash in the lake in September 1965. (Photo by Clark Fair, 1990)

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were 1965 and 1975.…

Harold Galliett, the sole survivor of a 1965 Cordova Airlines crash into Tustumena Lake, is seen here raking his lawn in 1958. (Photo courtesy of the Galliett Family Collection)

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were 1965 and 1975.…

Photo from Galliett’s 2014 obituary Harold Galliett was the lone survivor of a 1965 Cordova Airlines crash into Tustumena Lake. A year after the accident, Galliett was given the opportunity to fly in the plane again after it had been retrieved from the bottom of the lake. He declined.

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Records indicate that the two most deadly years for people on or near Tustumena Lake were…

Photo courtesy of the Secora Collection This 1939 Joe Secora photograph shows the wooden marker on the grave of James Chase, who drowned in Tustumena Lake in 1902.

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The 2 most deadly years — Part 1

A Splendid, Dangerous Place

Photo courtesy of the Nutter Family Collection In 1954, David Nutter (right) and his younger half-brother Frank Gwartney were ready for their first day of school in Sitka.

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Finding Mister Nutter — Part 6

Although Warren Melville Nutter was a resident of Seward for most of the 1930s, the latter 1940s and…

Photo courtesy of the Nutter Family Collection Posing in front of Warren Melville Nutter’s large home in Hope in about 1961 are (L-R): Warren Nutter’s only biological child, David; David’s younger half-brother Frank Gwartney, and Nutter himself. After Nutter died in 1962, his Hope property was split between the two boys.

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Finding Mister Nutter — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Warren Melville Nutter spent the final 32 years of his life on the Kenai Peninsula, working…