Kenai Peninsula Borough is a borough of the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census, the population was 55,400. The borough seat is Soldotna.
Bear Creek is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 1,956, up from 1,748 in 2000. Bear Creek is a few miles north of Seward near the stream of the same name and its source, Bear Lake.
Kenai is a city in the Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is one hundred and eighty-seven miles south from Anchorage. The population was 7,100 as of the 2010 census, up from 6,942 in 2000.
The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of Southcentral Alaska. The name Kenai is derived from the word "Kenaitze" or "Kenaitze Indian Tribe", the name of the Native Athabascan Alaskan tribe, the Kahtnuht’ana Dena’ina, who historically inhabited the area. They called the Kenai Peninsula Yaghanen.
Cook Inlet stretches 180 miles (290 km) from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska. Cook Inlet branches into the Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm at its northern end, almost surrounding Anchorage. On its southern end, it merges with Shelikof Strait, Stevenson Entrance, Kennedy Entrance and Chugach Passage.
Turnagain Arm is a waterway into the northwestern part of the Gulf of Alaska. It is one of two narrow branches at the north end of Cook Inlet, the other being Knik Arm. Turnagain is subject to climate extremes and large tide ranges.
The Kenai River called Kahtnu in the Dena'ina language and Кенай in Russian, is the longest river in the Kenai Peninsula of south central Alaska. It runs 82 miles (132 km) westward from Kenai Lake in the Kenai Mountains, through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and Skilak Lake to its outlet into the Cook Inlet of the Pacific Ocean near Kenai and Soldotna.
The Sterling Highway is a 138-mile-long (222 km) state highway in the south-central region of the U.S. state of Alaska, leading from the Seward Highway at Tern Lake Junction, 90 miles (140 km) south of Anchorage, to Homer.
The Chugach National Forest is a 6,908,540-acre (27,958 km2) United States National Forest in south central Alaska. Covering portions of Prince William Sound, the Kenai Peninsula and the Copper River Delta, it was formed in 1907 from part of a larger forest reserve. The Chugach includes extensive shorelines, glaciers, forests and rivers, much of which is untouched by roads or trails. It hosts numerous bird, mammal and marine species, including extensive shorebird habitat and a bald eagle population larger than the contiguous 48 states combined. Human industry in the forest includes extensive tourism and some mining and oil and gas operations.
The Denaʼina, or formerly Tanaina, are an Alaska Native Athabaskan people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They are the original inhabitants of the south central Alaska region ranging from Seldovia in the south to Chickaloon in the northeast, Talkeetna in the north, Lime Village in the Northwest and Pedro Bay in the Southwest. The Denaʼina homeland is more than 41,000 square miles in area. They arrived in the Southcentral Alaska sometime between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago. They were the only Alaskan Athabaskan group to live on the coast. Denaʼina culture is a hunter-gatherer culture and have a matrilineal system. The Iditarod Trail's antecedents were the native trails of the Denaʼina and Deg Hitʼan Athabaskan Indians and the Inupiaq Eskimos.
Southwest Alaska is a region of the U.S. state of Alaska. The area is not exactly defined by any governmental administrative region(s); nor does it always have a clear geographic boundary.
The King Salmon River is a 35-mile (56 km) tributary of the Ugashik River in the U.S. state of Alaska. Beginning at Mother Goose Lake in the Aleutian Range, it flows northwest to meet the larger river near the upper reaches of Ugashik Bay. The lake and the upper course of the King Salmon lie within the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge. The river's gravel bottom and braided channels are ideal for the many king salmon that spawn in its waters, but they limit navigation to small skiff.
The State of Alaska is both a producer and consumer of natural gas. In 2006, Alaska consumed 180.4 Bcf of natural gas.
The Trail Lakes are two lakes on the lower Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. The lakes are near the town of Moose Pass and adjacent to the Seward Highway. They are the home of a large salmon hatchery owned by the state of Alaska and operated by the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association. The fish hatched at this facility are released into streams and lakes at various points on the peninsula, and are also the source of the salmon runs at the "fishing hole" on the Homer Spit. The hatchery was at the center of a prolonged legal battle between the Wilderness Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The society claimed that the hatchery was conducting commercial activity in a wilderness area, and such activity is illegal under the Wilderness Act.
The Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association or CIAA is a non-profit organization based in Kenai, Alaska that works to create sustainable salmon stocks in the Cook Inlet area.
The Chuitna Coal Project is a proposed coal strip mine that, if granted state and federal permits, would be built about 45 miles (72 km) southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, in an area known as the Beluga Coal Fields near the Chuitna River and the small communities of Tyonek and Beluga in upper Cook Inlet.
Kenai Mountains – Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. The heritage area extends across the northern part of the Kenai Peninsula, immediately to the north and east of Kenai Fjords National Park. The designation recognizes the area's unique cultural, scenic and historical features and provides a unified organization for promotion of the area's attractions.
Captain Cook State Recreation Area is a park on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. It is located on the shores of Cook Inlet at the northern terminus of the Kenai Spur Highway, about 25 miles (40 km) north of Kenai and 14 miles (23 km) north of Nikiski. Both the Inlet and the recreation area are named after Captain James Cook who explored the area in 1778.
The Resurrection River is a large river on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. It rises near Upper Russian Lake in the Kenai Mountains and flows 22 miles (35 km) to empty into Resurrection Bay near Seward. Part of the river passes through Kenai Fjords National Park. There has been small-scale placer mining for gold at the confluence of the river and Placer Creek.
The Cook Inlet Basin is a northeast-trending collisional forearc basin that stretches from the Gulf of Alaska into South central Alaska, just east of the Matanuska Valley. It is located in the arc-trench gap between the Alaska-Aleutian Range batholith and contains roughly 80,000 cubic miles of sedimentary rocks. These sediments are mainly derived from Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments.
