Talk:Kenai Peninsula
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External Links?
[edit]my link, add if appropriate. AlaskaTrekker 18:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
History sections needed
[edit]this article needs History sections: Ancient, Pre-Europeans, Europeand
This link will help.
Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 22:09, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
- Actually, most of the history of the Kenai is covered in the articles on the individual settlements. For example, the article on the town of Kenai goes onto considerably more detail than the link you have provided. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:43, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
kenai peninsula , partial rewrite of Geography, opinions anyone?
[edit]The peninsula is about 9,400 sq. mi. ref 1 p 29pdf/22 and extends approximately 150 miles (240 km) southwest from the south end of the Chugach Mountains east of Anchorage. Most (77%) of the Kenai Peninsula is protected by the federal and state governments, all except 2,151 sq mi.. It is separated from the rest of Alaska by an isthmus approximately 6 to 9 miles wide between the end of Turnagain Arm (town of Portage) and Canal Passage (town of Whittier).ref p 28pdf/21 It is seperated by the Ocean, on the west by Cook Inlet, on the north by Cook Inlet, Turnagain Arm and Canal Passage, on the east by Prince William Sound and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the peninsula is part of the Kenai Peninsula Borough and the rest is part of the Municipality of Anchorage and a Unorganized Borough (Valdez-Cordova Census Area). ref 3
. Athabaskan and Alutiiq Native groups lived on the peninsula for thousands of years. Europeans to visit Cook Inlet include the 1778 expedition of James Cook, its namesake, who sailed into it while searching for the Northwest Passage. Cook received maps of Alaska, the Aleutians, and Kamchatka during a visit with Russian fur trader Gerasim Izmailov in Unalaska, and combined these maps with those of his expedition to create the first Mercator projection of the North Pacific. ref 3 Cook sent men ashore at Point Possession on Turnagain Arm. A Russian fortress called Aleksandrovsk, the first Russian post on mainland Alaska, was established at the present site of Nanwalek by men of Grigorii Shelikhov’s company in 1786. The Lebedev Lastochkin Company leader Stepan Zaikov established a post at the mouth of the Kenai River, Fort Nikolaev, in 1786. ref 3 Gerasim Izmailov the first European to explore and map the area in 1789. The glacier-covered Kenai Mountains with an area of about 6,500 sq. mi. Ref 1 p 29pdf/22 , rising up to 7,000 feet (2,100 m) and generally 3,000 to 5,000 ft, run along the western half and southeast spine of the peninsula along the coast of Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. some of the range is within Kenai Fjords National Park (1,046.9 sq mi; 2,711.3 km2), the Chugach National Forest (peninsula part 2,266.95 sq mi), Kenai National Wildlife Refuge 3,000 sq mi, Kachemak Bay State Park (625 sq mi), and Kachemak Bay State Wilderness Park (310 sq mi).
The western half of the peninsula north of Kachemak bay along the Cook Inlet is flatter and marshy, dotted with numerous small lakes with an area of about 2,900 sq. mi.. ref 1 p 29pdf/22 Several larger lakes extend through the interior of the peninsula, including Skilak Lake and Tustumena Lake. Rivers include the Kenai River, famous for its salmon population, as well as its tributary, the Russian River, the Kasilof River, and the Anchor River. Kachemak Bay, a small inlet off the larger Cook Inlet, extends into the peninsula's southwest end, a lot of the bay is part of Kachemak Bay State Park and almost all of the bay is Kachemak Bay State Critical Habitat Area and a National Estuarine Research Reserve. Other Protected areas include Fox River Flats State Critical Habitat Area, Homer Airport State Critical Habitat Area and Clam Gulch State Critical Habitat Area.
The Kenai Peninsula has many glaciers in its eastern and southern areas. It is home to both the Sargent Icefield (east of the city of Seward on the western shore of Prince William Sound) and Harding Icefields (between Seward, Nuka bay and the Kenai Icefield , Skilak Lake and northeast end of Kachemak bay) and numerous glaciers that spawn off them. Some of the well known glaciers are Portage, Byron and Whittier glaciers at the north end of the peninsula, Exit, Aialik, Holgate, Northwestern, and McCarty glaciers (west of Seward from the Harding ice fields) and Southern, Doroshin, Wosnesenski, Grewingk, Portlock, Dixon and Kachemak Glacier, Dinglestadt glaciers on the southeast side of Kachemak Bay from the Kenai Icefield, The Kenai Icefield has 27 glaciers and these are the most westerly glaciers on the Kenai Peninsula. ref 4
ref 1 p [pdf page]/[document page] Department of the Interior United States Geological Survey Bulletin 587 Geology and Mineral Resources of Kenai Peninsula, Alaska by G. C. Martin, B. L. Johnson, and U. S. Grant Washington government printing office 1915 Stanford Library The Branner Geological Library Digitized by Google books https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QaeXqS4jwLe0rKBXQGR9BfRidj5wVv7iqyW60xeaVBUjFs2ri0ww3wX_OMno9ZGB-50yQ9JO5BNmKi_Y0UctuCLUKzKcliNlL7wGtC0anT-1gc67EdJ2ZoJPyQDoZN5Or748ID8mWYycHDv1nktjvaKvIMnR2aEf8wV32Z3aPR_9V8HNKwEEeSqrulJISqqRRGO9-e30D8iokpCv4b4djNGRNhhdf5urnSiPVTWaRfHyfClDEGr5SIdRDAGtTbxJzKQ7qqFuAh-U6MxqiUTAj0CHFKBTeA
ref 2 topozone.com USGS topographic maps https://www.topozone.com/alaska/
ref 3 wiki cook inlet
ref 4 https://coastview.org/articles/2019/9/16/grewingk-glacier-kachemak-bay