Silver Wagons going North, The Magnificent 7!: Pink Gold (Salmon)

Soldatna - Kenai Peninsula

June 27 - June 30, 2016

The Kenai Peninsula is regarded by many as “Alaska’s Playground” and boy is this ever the truth. The landscape and geography is stunning with a wall of Volcanic Mountains to the west, glaciers, rivers and lakes make up this gorgeous peninsula and FISHING is the Key word here. Many travelers come to the Kenai loaded down with trailers equipped with smokers, freezers, canning essentials and sealer machines. They plop themselves down on the Kenai river for the various salmon runs, whether it be the Red (sockeye), Silver or the King Salmon. There are also the glacier lakes that run into the Cook Inlet and various bays along the peninsula. Each of these Bays has adorable little communities that have grown around the fishing industry. Really beautiful area.

Kenai River boardwalk

hiking along the Russian River

What makes this place so special for me is that my family lived here for a few years in the early 1960’s. We lived in the city of Kenai. My little sister, Rebecca was born in Anchorage as there was no hospital in the Kenai at that time, my mom had to travel one month prior to her due date to Anchorage to have her baby. We also lived through the Earthquake of 1964, the biggest earthquake in North America! My job (per my mom) was to try and find our “house” in the Kenai while I am here. Not so easy!!! The Army base where we lived is now a Men’s Prison and the military housing was all fenced off with no plans for the future. Still drove around and took pictures for my mom - should bring some memories back for her. This is why we are HERE today. My father told Kevin so many wonderful stories about the Kenai and shared pictures and “tall tales” of his great fishing adventures. This was our planned trip so many years ago with HIM…..didn’t work out as planned, but we are here now and do miss him so much. He would have been very proud of our accomplishment and how much fun we have had enjoying this part of his world.

Street to our old house (1964)

Soldatna is a quaint town which entire focus is on the Kenai River and the Salmon run. There is a cannery (in which my mom worked!) and several fish packing companies which flash freeze and FedEx all your fish home. It’s quite the fishing industry. Kevin and a few friends went on a Chartered Fishing boat that took them on the Kenai river in which they FOUGHT the current and the strong salmon, but caught their limit and had a great day.

I was talked into the other option of a “Fly In.” Our Float Plane would take us out to the Volcanic Mountains and drop us off in a glacier valley. We landed in the Big River Lakes, boarded a small boat with “DAN,” our exceptional fishing guide for the day. Just the 4 of us ladies. WOW. Won’t even try to go into our day. It was just great. We had so much fun learning how to catch these big Sockeye’s. Didn’t need the Aleve like the guys the day before….not as much struggling in the lake with Dan as they had in the river with waders! Scenery was spectacular, great company and such a cool thing to take off in a float plane from a lake and land on a lake. So much nicer than a runway. Our pilot was super nice and took us over the Double Glacier that was dusted with Volcanic ash from a recent eruption of Mt. Redoubt (10,197 ft). We were super fortunate that we had a gorgeous day as today it is raining and giving us that typical “Alaska weather” of ????? rain, clear, cloudy??? just never know what to expect. But yesterday was GREAT.