BILL ROTH / Daily News archive 2004
The old fish-processing and salmon-canning plant at Kenai Landing has been converted into Sockeyes restaurant. The old cannery was the largest on the Kenai Peninsula, but now the 60-acre site is home to a number of visitor attractions -- the restaurant, a movie theater and a marketplace selling art, pottery, fabrics and antiques.
Top advertisers
Story tools
Lure of history
When you're not fishing, there's a lot to see in Kenai
Published: April 22nd, 2008
Last Modified: April 23rd, 2008 at 05:12 PM
The town of Kenai is rich with history, art and excitement. Visitors will find something of interest around almost corner and leave with a memory rich in wonder.
Old Town Kenai is a great place to start to find the area's hidden treasures.
The Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center has a wealth of brochures and videos with various Alaska topics. The center also features a wildlife display room and many natural history objects and Alaska Native artifacts.
Each summer the center features an annual contemporary art exhibit. According to Natasha Ala, programs and exhibits manager for the center, this year's show is titled "Alaskan Light: Mystery Revealed," and the show curator is Kenai Peninsula College art professor Jayne Jones
"Over 100 of Alaska's top contemporary artists have been invited, and this year's show promises to be another top-notch production," she said.
After viewing the center, visitors can take a self-guided walking tour through Old Town Kenai to see the century-old Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church and the historic Veronica's Coffee House, as well as a glorious view of Cook Inlet at the turn on Overland Road and several civic and commercial buildings.
Another gem is the Kenai Fine Arts Center, which was a one-room jail house and fire station in the early 1950s. Donnis Thompson moved to Kenai in 1953 and recalls that the building was also used as a big hall where dances were held.
"They were a heck of a lot of fun," she said.
The Roots Digger Museum, owned by Mary Lou Bottorff, is the newest museum in Kenai and offers items from the Kenai Peninsula and across Alaska.
Located behind the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center, the building also is rich in history. It was built in the early 1930s and used as a Department of Fish and Game garage. Today the building is owned by the Kenaitze Indian Tribe.
"That is a perfect building for my museum, right in Old Town," Bottorff said.
She said her hobby of collecting started early, yet many of the items on display are not her own.
"I acquired most of the objects from the Seward Peninsula; I have been collecting most of my life. I have about 200 or more objects," she said. "People here in the Kenai have been adding to my collection."
The impressive collection is an array of items used by early Alaskans, including tools, masks, artwork, clothing and rare finds.
Bottorff said she is open seven days a week from May 1 to Aug. 31.
Bottorff explains that single whale vertebra disks, displayed hanging from fish nets from a shelf, were used as dishes for those living along Alaska's northern coast. She also has baskets from the Yup'ik people of Hooper Bay.
After retirement, Bottorff spent many hours creating shadow boxes to display her collection. Items from the old mining days in Nome line one wall in the shadow boxes, while other boxes display trading beads made from glass, walrus tusk and mastodon tusk.
"I have been collecting for years and years," she said.
Another find is an Eskimo basket said to be more than 100 years old.
"They made it out of clay, blood and hair," she said.
She also has an extensive collection of books on Alaska, and chairs for visitors to sit in and enjoy learning more about the state's history.
While Bottorff's own collection is impressive, many items in the museum have been lent or donated to her for display. One special item she has is a handmade dancing cloak from Southeast Alaska. Bottorff knew the creator of the cloak, who donated it to the museum before leaving the area.
"She said I treated them like family, so she wanted me to have it," she said. "It is very special."
Bottorff has numerous dolls made from skin, ivory, fur and wood. Tucked inside a glass case is a doll made from walrus ivory that was carbon dated to 2,300 years old.
Bottorff asks visitors only for donations to view a collection of Alaskan history that she has enjoyed discovering.
"It just gives me something to do," she said, "I enjoy sharing."
Just a few miles away from Old Town, the Kenai Landing is a bustling waterfront resort that also is rich in history.
John Faulkner, co-owner of Kenai Landing, said the cannery was the first and largest on the Kenai River. It was rebuilt after a 1921 fire and was in operation until 1997, when low returns on salmon runs caused a closure. The site was originally the old Wards Cove Packing Co., a large cannery that dates back to 1912.
Today, the 60-acre riverfront resort, located off Cannery Drive on Kalifornsky Beach Road, is open from early May to late September. The warehouse market offers dining, a movie theater and a variety of shops featuring art, pottery, fabrics, textiles and antiques, all with a uniquely Alaska theme inside the timber-framed warehouse.
"It is one of the largest original (riverfront) communities," Faulkner said.
Fishing is still a necessary part of Kenai Landing. There is a boat launch for river access and floating docks for dipnetters.
"It is the most popular place on the river to dipnet," Faulkner said.
Faulkner also highlighted the beauty of the site, explaining how the area is a designated wildlife preserve with great waterfowl viewing. The area also has the longest stretch of sandy beach in Southcentral.
"At high tide, you can walk this beach," he said, adding that most Alaska beaches are inaccessible at high tide.
Faulkner said the cannery is not only the oldest cannery in Alaska, but its rich tradition is something to be preserved.
"It is a significant part of our history," he said.
Freelance writer Sara J. Hardan-Smith lives in Nikiski. •
What locals say
"Year-round (at the Kenai Fine Arts Center) you'll find pottery, paintings and photograpy. ... In the back is workshop space and the old jail. The jail cell is still there; now it's office space."
-- Zirrus Van Develde, Peninsula Art Guild exhibition coordinator
Editor's picks
• Walk through history: Old Town Kenai is worth an hour or more of your time. There is a nice walking tour, and the view from the bluff over Cook Inlet is outstanding. The historic buildings are among the oldest in Alaska, some dating from the 1880s.
• Follow the dipnetters: Visitors can't share in the annual sockeye salmon harvest at the mouth of the Kenai River, but it's fun to watch a bunch of crazy Alaskans hauling fish after fish to shore in oversized nets. Dipnetting takes place in late July.
• Take time for some art: The Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center's annual art display is always worth seeing. There also are several art galleries in town; enjoy what the locals create.
• Cannery row: Kenai Landing is just across the mouth of the Kenai River from town and was formerly the Wards Cove Packing Co. cannery. It is steeped in 90 years of history. Today, it is a vibrant waterfront community off Kalifornsky Beach Road, where visitors can dine in a restaurant in a converted cannery, stay in rooms that once housed workers or visit shops.
