Seward to Soldotna
June 20 - 28, 2019
On Thursday, June 20, we drove from Seward to Homer.
We stayed at the Ocean View RV Park. It had a nice view of the ocean, but otherwise was pretty much overpriced.
On Saturday we boarded The Sundy to go halibut fishing (our makeup trip). We both caught our large and small halibut.
We had them processed, frozen, kept 10 packages, and shipped the rest home. I know we're going to enjoy them for months to come.
On Monday, June 24 we drove to Soldotna and are staying at Centennial Campground, a city owned campground. It's dry camping ($21 per night) but now that the first run of red salmon has gone through and the second run doesn't come until the middle of July it's quiet here. When the salmon are running through here I understand that it's a zoo.
This is the walkway from near our site to the Kenai River.
On Tuesday we went to the Soldotna Homestead Museum. Carol, the docent, led our 2 hour tour and was very knowledgeable. She grew up here so to hear her first hand stories was very interesting.
She said oil was found in the northern part of the Kenai Peninsula in 1957. As soon as Congress found out about this they started pushing for statehood (they didn't want Russia to get it). President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act into United States law on July 4, 1958, and Alaska was admitted into the Union on January 3, 1959. In 1968 oil reserves were found in Prudhoe Bay, and then the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was built.
In 1947, after World War II, the United States government withdrew a number of townships along Cook Inlet and the lower Kenai River from the Kenai National Moose Range, opening up the area to settlement under the Homestead Act. Veterans of the United States armed services were given a 90-day preference over non-veterans in selecting 160 acres of land and filing for property. Also in that year, the Sterling Highway right-of-way was cleared of trees from Cooper Landing to Kenai. The location of present-day Soldotna was selected as the site for the highway's bridge crossing the Kenai River. Until the bridge was built the majority of the population was north of the river.
The construction of the Sterling Highway provided a link from the Soldotna area to the outside world. Until that time Soldotna was isolated and the only was in or out was by air. Many men claimed their homestead and went back to the lower 48 to find wives. When some of the wives came and saw the cabins and that life was like it had been 100 years ago with no electricity or plumbing they didn't stay. After the road more homesteads were taken and visitors came to fish in the area.
Here are three of the cabins and a food cache (the food cache was double the height shown here to keep animals out and was used as a pantry and in the winter a freezer).
In the former community hall they had a display of Alaskan artifacts and an animal diorama. This was a 'small' brown (grizzly) bear.
If you're in the area I would highly recommend going to the museum.
Bill and Lisa have a Green Mountain smoker grill. They fixed some halibut and steaks on it for us, and they were delicious. We were hooked and decided we needed one. We looked all over and finally found a Traeger Tailgater at Home Depot (it looks big but the legs fold up).
It was 9:00 at 'night' as we got in the truck to go get it. We had to use the sun visors because the sun was in our faces. John spent until 1:00 putting it together. The next night we had our freshly caught halibut and it was delicious! Last night we tried chicken and it too was delicious. I have a feeling we are going to be using it a lot.
Late Wednesday afternoon a moose visited our campsite. We were pretty excited about this as we hadn't seen any wildlife up close (we stayed a safe distance away). She came back a couple of hours later, and then we saw her the next day with her two babies.
When you are in Soldotna you must go to The Moose is Loose Bakery. We stopped and got a couple of apple fritters and a loaf of cinnamon apple bread. The fritters were so good, and we're still eating the bread. Mmmmm...
Tomorrow we move on to Cooper Landing. There is the Swan Lake fire north of the Sterling Highway between Sterling and Cooper River. They have it under control but even here in Soldotna it is hazy and we can smell the smoke. They have at times shut down the highway and other times have pilot cars to lead people through the area. We don't expect any problems.
Roving on...
The heavens declare
the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Psalm 19:1
❤️
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