7-28-2013 Checking out Kenai and the results of Sawfest

  

Bob headed out to the golf course to play a round.  Hadn’t played in probably 3 weeks so was ready to see if he still had the touch.  While he did that, Sharon went with Don and Joy to take a drive into Kenai.  Kenai is larger than Soldotna and right on the coast.  

We are finally to the mouth of the Kenai River.  And, again, there are many fishermen.  These were using dipnets as the salmon are entering the river.  Because there have been over 600,000 salmon come into the river already, they are also letting the commercial fishermen use their nets just outside the mouth of the river to bring in large catches as well. 

Right across the Cook Inlet we were also able to just start seeing the volcanoes on the other side.  They are over 10,000 feet, but the haze made it a bit tough to see them.   Mount Iliamna is the closest.

Rectory is there on the left.  Church in front.

As always, Sharon had to get her history in.  The Russian Orthodox churches are some of the oldest buildings in Alaska.   The rectory of the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church is considered the oldest building on the Kenai Peninsula.  We visited the church and the chapel today.  Very typical of the Russian church construction. 

The St. Nicholas Chapel, actually built on the site of the original church, was a memorial to the first Russian monk, Father Nicholas and his helper Makary Ivanov, for their work distributing the first smallpox vaccine in the territory.  They are so isolated out here. At least Kenai is on the coast.  We have been in so many places that it took weeks or months to pack or mush in to an area.

We were driving along trying to find a way to get down to the coast and who should we run into?  Bob!  Doing the same thing.  Taking pictures along the coast.  It was getting close to the time for the judging of the Sawfest at Progress Days so we headed back to Soldotna.    Progress Days actually started back in 1960 to celebrate the completion of the natural gas line.  Hey, everybody has to have something to celebrate!!

There had been a lot of work done since we left yesterday!  Check out the completed totems.  We didn’t agree with the judging, but it was popularity vote by the folks and not all agreed.  They said with over 600 votes, it came down to 4 votes!  (where have we heard that before?)   We really like the one that all the animals were woven around the totem, but the flashier ones won out.  Guess we should have voted.

1st

2nd

We really liked how intricately they were intertwined.

Can you see how the animals are wound around the pole??

This one came in 5th, but he won all the saw-offs.

Alice in Wonderland came in 4th.

While we were gone, they also had “saw offs” to complete a fish and an eagle.  They really are artists of a different medium.

On our way back to the motorhome, we drove down the road to the airport.  Yes, because of the remoteness of these places, every town has an airport.  The plane is a Starduster SA 100 single-engine, single seat, open cockpit biplane.  It was built by the locals in the 60’s and used in Alaska air shows until the 90’s.    It was retired here in 2001 as a remembrance of the early Soldotna area aviators.   I think it’s pretty cool.