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Kenai Fjords
A Stern and Rock-Bound Coast: Historic Resource Study |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. THE STERN AND ROCK-BOUND COAST
Geographic Overview
Historical Geography of the Coast
Glaciers
The Fjords
Resurrection Bay
Aialik Bay
Harris Bay
McCarty Fjord or East Arm of Nuka Bay
Nuka Bay (West Arm)
Portages
2. LIVING ON THE OUTER KENAI PENINSULA
The Chugach and Unegkurmiut
A People Few in Number
Warfare and Trade
Villages
Acculturation and Change
3. EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND RUSSIAN SETTLEMENT PATTERNS ON THE LOWER KENAI PENINSULA
European Exploration and Trade on the Kenai Peninsula
Russian Enterprise on the Outer Kenai Coast
Fort Voskresenskii and the Building of the Phoenix
Russian Interests Change along the Outer Kenai Coast
The Kenai Russian Orthodox Mission
Russian Coal Mining on the Kenai Coast
4. SHIFTING LANDSCAPE: DEMOGRAPHICS, ECONOMICS, AND ENVIRONMENT ON THE OUTER KENAI COAST
Fur Trading After the Alaska Purchase
The Alaska Commercial Company at English Bay
The Yalik Bay Store
Frank Lowell: Hunter, Trader, and Station Manager
The Western Fur Company and the Collapse of Fur Prices
The Influence of the Kenai Mission After 1867
Native Labor and the Rise of the Fishing Industry
5. DEVELOPING THE TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE
The Alaska Central Railroad and the founding of Seward
Shipping Activities Along the Kenai Coastline
Establishing a Network of Navigational Aids
Roads and Road Proposals
Aviation Facility Development
Dams and Diversion Projects
6. LIVING OFF THE LAND AND SEA
Traditional Use Activities
Fox Farming
The Nuka Island Fox Farm
Homesteading
Harbor Seal Harvesting Prior to 1960
Harbor Seal Harvesting, 1960 to Present
Sea Lion Harvesting
Early Kenai Peninsula Exploration
Nuka Bay Gold Mining: A Chronology
Nuka Bay Mining Sites: Beauty Bay
Alaska Hills Mining Corporation
Nuka Bay Mining Company (Harrington Prospect)
Nukalaska Mining Company
Glass and Heifner Mine
Miscellaneous Sites, Beauty Bay
Nuka Bay Mining Sites: North Arm
Rosness and Larson Property
Kasanek-Smith Prospect
Robert Hatcher Prospects
Charles Frank Prospect
Nuka Bay Mining Sites: Surprise and Quartz Bays
Sonny Fox Mine (Babcock and Downey Property)
Skinner Prospect #1
Johnston and Deegan Property
Goyne Prospect (Golden Horn Prospect)
Nuka Bay Mining Sites: West Arm and Yalik Bay
Lang-Skinner Prospect
Blair-Sather Prospect
Resurrection River Mining Sites
8. IMPACTS OF MILITARY ACTIVITIES
Early Plans and Facilities
World War II Activities in Seward
World War II Activities in Resurrection Bay
The Outer Island Station
9. COMMERCIAL FISH AND SHELLFISH HARVESTING
The Southern Kenai Peninsula Salmon Fishery, 1911-1945
Early Cook Inlet Salteries and Canneries
The Resurrection Bay Fishery
The Regulatory Environment
Fishing Along the Outer Coast
Salmon Fishing Along the Southern Kenai Coast, 1946-1959
General Postwar Trends
Fishing in the Park: The Laissez Faire Period, 1946-1954
The Onset of Regulation, 1955-1959
Commercial Salmon Fishing Since Statehood
Statehood and Its Ramifications, 1960-1963
The Good Friday Earthquake and Its Aftermath
Fishing in Park Waters, 1970 to present
The Halibut and Cod Fisheries
Other Commercial Fisheries
Herring
Shrimp
Crab
Miscellaneous Species
Early Recreational Trends
The Lure of the Kenai Peninsula Gamelands
Seward Area Land Reservations
Visitors to the Southern Kenai Coast, 1900-1940
Early Sightseers and Hunters
Rockwell Kent's Visit to Renard Island
Seward Becomes a Tourist Node
Tourists and Hunters Visit the Coastal Fjords
Recreational Trends, 1940-1970
The Kenai National Moose Range is Established
Recreational Activities Along the Southern Coast
Oil Exploration and Kenai Moose Range Management
The Exit Glacier Road
Mountaineers Explore the Harding Icefield
The Harding Icefield Snowmobile Development
Federal Efforts to Preserve the Icefields and Fjords, 1968-1980
The National Natural Landmark Nomination
The Seward National Recreation Area Proposal
Proposed Interior Department Reservations
Congress Establishes Kenai Fjords National Park
Recreational Impacts of Interior Department Activities
INDEX (omitted from the online edition)
LIST OF MAPS
Map 2-1. Historic Sites — Nature Lifeways
Map 3-1. Historic Sites — European Exploration/Russian Settlement
Map 4-1. Historic Sites — Shifting Landscape
Map 5-1. Historic Sites — Transportation Development
Map 6-1. Historic Sites — Fox Farming/Homesteading
Map 7-1. Historic Sites — Gold Mining
Map 8-1. Historic Sites — Military Activity
Map 9-1. Historic Sites — Commercial Fishing
Map 9-2. Southern Kenai Peninsula Statistical Areas, 1944-1950
Map 9-3. Lower Cook Inlet Management Districts
Map 9-4. Lower Cook Inlet Statistical Areas, 1968-1995
Map 9-5. Pacific Halibut Statistical Areas
Map 10-1. Historic Sites — Recreation/Tourism
Map 10-2. Seward Area Land Reservations, 1909-1926
Map 10-3. Kenai Moose Range Boundaries, 1941-1971
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3-1. Chronological Summary of Russian, Spanish, and Prince William Sound Regions
Table 7-1. Elements Comprising the Nuka Bay Mining District
Table 9-1. Harvest Data for Statistical Area 44, 1944-1950
Table 9-2. Outer District (Cook Inlet) Salmon Harvest, 1954-1995
Table 9-3. Eastern District (Cook Inlet) Salmon Harvest, 1954-1995
Table 9-4. Salmon Harvest, by Number of Fish and Percentage of Total Harvest for Selected Periods, 1954-1994
Table 9-5. Commercial Pink Salmon Harvest for Selected Lower Cook Inlet Bays, 1959-1995
Table 9-6. Commercial Chum Salmon Harvest for Selected Lower Cook Inlet Bays, 1959-1995
Table 9-7. Commercial Sockeye Salmon Harvest for Selected Lower Cook Inlet Bays, 1959-1995
Table 9-8. Statistics on Park-Area Salmon Fishing, 1968-1995
Table 9-9. Residence of Commercial Salmon Fishers Active in Kenai Fjords National Park, 1975-1995
Table 9-10. Annual Halibut Harvest, Statistical Area 25, 1923-1995
Table 9-11a. Herring Harvesting in Lower Cook Inlet, 1918-1930
Table 9-11b. Location of Lower Cook Inlet Herring Plants, 1924-1930
Table 9-12. Statistics on Park-Area Fishing, 1970-1995 (Non-Salmon Species)
Table 9-13. Shrimp Harvests in Cook Inlet (Outer and Eastern Districts), 1977-1995
Table 9-14. Outer District and Eastern District Crab Harvest, 1960-1995
Table 9-15. Statistics of the Kenai Fjords Tanner Crab Fishery, 1972-1988
LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS
Fig. Sea stacks are a common feature along the Kenai Fjords coastline.
Fig. The southern Kenai Peninsula coast is often windswept and stormy.
Fig. Portrait of George Davidson.
Fig. George Davidson's map of Outer Kenai Coast, 1902.
Fig. Russian Hydrographic Department Chart of Gulf of Alaska, 1847.
Fig. Adventurers explore McCarty Glacier during 1919 expedition.
Fig. Holgate Glacier as it appeared in the spring of 1955.
Fig. Northwestern Glacier as it appeared in the mid-1940s.
Fig. USGS Reconnaissance Map of Outer Kenai Coast, 1913.
Fig. Glacier limits in the Aialik Bay Area.
Fig. A woman of Prince William Sound.
Fig. Hunting baidarka.
Fig. A group of Natives by a barabara, 1901, above Seldovia.
Fig. A rocky beach with family of sea otters, from Georg Langsdorff, c. 1805.
Fig. Native paddlers rest in their baidarkas near Seldovia, c. 1916.
Fig. Coal Harbor, near Port Graham, 1786.
Fig. Prince William Sound (Snug Harbor) and Captain Cook's ships, 1778.
Fig. Spanish map of Cook Inlet and Kenai Coast region, 1790.
Fig. Overturned boats typically used as shelter.
Fig. Tracing of Vancouver's route around the Kenai Peninsula.
Fig. Fig. Etchings of Cook Inlet and environs, by John Sykes.
Fig. Sarychev atlas, c. 1826, showing Outer Kenai Coast.
Fig. James Shields drawings of Resurrection Bay shipbuilding site, c. 1795.
Fig. Coal Village, near Port Graham, c. 1860.
Fig. Teben'kov Chart #5 showing Outer Kenai Coast, 1849.
Fig. Mary Lowell and family.
Fig. "Lowell Bay Landing" as it appeared before Seward was founded.
Fig. The Lowell cabin, around which Seward townsite sprang up in 1903.
Fig. Early photo of "Cains Hill" (Caines Head).
Fig. Frank Lowell, English Bay Company Store Account, 1885.
Fig. English Bay Outstanding Accounts, 1875.
Fig. Fig. English Bay Station, Outstanding Accounts, 1893.
Fig. The steamer Dora, an early southwestern Alaska workhorse.
Fig. The steamer Starr, another fixture along the southern Kenai coast.
Fig. Seward, as it appeared about 1923.
Fig. Scene along the Seward-Kenai Lake road, c. 1919.
Fig. The Alaska Steamship Company steamer Alaska.
Fig. The newly-completed Summit Creek dike, 1958.
Fig. Map of the proposed Bradley Lake project, 1961.
Fig. Pete and Josephine Sather on board their gas boat, the Rolfh III.
Fig. The Sathers, and a young friend, as they appeared in the 1930s.
Fig. The Sather family homestead, as it looked in 1938.
Fig. Photo of the Sather homestead, c. 1985.
Fig. During the 1920s and 1930s, scores of offshore islands housed fox farms.
Fig. The Sathers built feed houses in scattered locations around Nuka Island.
Fig. Harbor seals lay on floating bergs and made easy targets to seal hunters.
Fig. Pete Kesselring at his Aialik Bay seal-hunting camp, 1955.
Fig. Kesselring processing a newly-killed harbor seal.
Fig. Bounty hunters sometimes procured seals for various area fur farmers.
Fig. Bill Younker, a seal hunter, also filed for an Aialik Bay homestead.
Fig. Steller sea lions were occasionally harvested along the Kenai coast.
Fig. Frank Skeen's June 1923 gold discovery led to the Alaska Hills Mine, the first commercially productive mine in the Nuka Bay district.
Fig. Foss Wright Sargent, one of several early Placer Creek Cabin owners.
Fig. Remains of tunnels, mining equipment, camp buildings and roads are scattered throughout the West Arm and North Arm of Nuka Bay.
Fig. Fig. Tramways and classifiers are among the hundreds of artifacts of the early Nuka Bay mines.
Fig. Fig. The Placer Creek Cabin, built in the mid-1940s, is the park's only standing structure.
Fig. Overview of the Pye Islands, site of a World War II detector-site station.
Fig. Army Corps drawing of the Outer Island Aircraft Warning Service camp.
Fig. The Kitten Pass stairway, built in 1942 at the north end of Outer Island.
Fig. The "San Juan plant" was Seward's largest cannery from 1917 to 1930.
Fig. Fishing boats at the Seward small boat harbor.
Fig. Interior of a Seward cold storage facility, 1958.
Fig. Regulatory markers were posted in area waters beginning in the 1950s.
Fig. The ADF&G maintained a fish counting station at Delight Creek.
Fig. A 1958 photo showing a typical stream guard shack.
Fig. In the 1920s, Seward was a popular stop for North Pacific halibut boats.
Fig. Rockwell Kent spent the winter of 1918-19 on Renard (Fox) Island.
Fig. An example of Kent's work, drawn during his island sojourn.
Fig. Seward Gateway advertisements lured early visitors to the fjord country.
Fig. President Harding and his wife during their July 1923 Seward visit.
Fig. For decades, hunters have sought out the fjord country for mountain goats and black bears.
Fig. Eric Barnes and Helmut Tschaffert ascending Truuli Peak in April 1968.
Fig. A trio of skiers crossing the Harding Icefield during the 1970s.
Fig. Bill Babcock, during his April 1968 crossing of the Harding Icefield.
Fig. Since 1970, the park waters have become increasingly popular for boaters.
Fig. Illustrations from Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent.
Fig. Illustrations from Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent.
Fig. Illustrations from Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent.
Fig. Illustrations from Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent.
Fig. Illustrations from Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent.
Fig. Illustrations from Wilderness, A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska, by Rockwell Kent.
LIST OF ACRONYMS
ADF&G — Alaska Department of Fish and Game
AEC — Alaska Engineering Commission
AHL — Alaska Historical Library, Juneau
AKSO — Alaska Support Office, Anchorage (NPS acronym)
AMTB — Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat
ANCSA — Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
ANILCA — Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
APG — Alaska Planning Group
ARC — Alaska Road Commission
ARO — Alaska Regional Office, Anchorage (NPS acronym)
ARLIS — Alaska Resource Library and Information Services
ASA — Alaska State Archives
AWS — Aircraft Warning Service
BCF — Bureau of Commercial Fisheries
BLM — Bureau of Land Management
BSF&W — Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife
C of C — Chamber of Commerce
DC — District of Columbia
DNR — (Alaska) Department of Natural Resources
EIS — Environmental Impact Statement
EQ — Executive Order
F&WS — Fish and Wildlife Service
FES — Final Environmental Statement
FWLB — Fish and Wildlife Library Base (entries at ARLIS)
GLO — General Land Office
GPO — Government Printing Office
HD — Harbor Defense
HECP — Harbor Entrance Control Post
HIKF — Harding Icefield-Kenai Fjords (proposed park unit)
HPC — Halibut Producers Co-operative
HRS — Historic Resource Study
IFC — International Fisheries Commission
IPHC — International Pacific Halibut Commission
KEFJ — Kenai Fjords National Park (NPS acronym)
NARA ANC — National Archives and Records Administration, Anchorage
NMFS — National Marine Fisheries Service
NNL — National Natural Landmark
NPS — National Park Service
NRA — National Recreation Area
NRPB — National Resources Planning Board
PLO — Public Land Order
RCR — Cultural Resources Division (NPS acronym)
RD — Regional Director
RG — Record Group
SEL — Seldovia (USGS quadrangle acronym)
SHPO — (Alaska) State Historic Preservation Office
UAA — University of Alaska Anchorage
UAF — University of Alaska Fairbanks
USBF — U.S. Bureau of Fisheries
USBM — U.S. Bureau of Mines
USC&GS — U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey
USGS — U.S. Geological Survey
USO — United Service Organization
WAA — War Assets Administration
WDC — Western Defense Command
kefj/hrs/contents.htm
Last Updated: 26-Oct-2002