Hello and welcome back to Nomad Dad Life! Today we will continue our Alaskan adventure by talking about our time on the Kenai Peninsula. If you haven’t read the last post about some areas around Anchorage, please do so here. We spent a lot of time on the Kenai Peninsula during our time in Alaska. We took multiple trips to Seward, Homer, and rented a house by Soldotna for the salmon run in July. Let’s get into why this is the favorite place I have been to!
Cooper Landing
Let’s start out with Cooper Landing. Located about 100 miles south of Anchorage, sitting on the west side of Kenai Lake, where the lake flows into the Kenai River, is Cooper Landing. It isn’t a very large town but, it is extremely busy in the summer when the salmon are running. Cooper Landing is one of the most beautiful places on the Kenai Peninsula. That glacier blue water surrounded by mountains is truly remarkable. My dad has a cousin who lives in Anchorage, and he took me floating down the Kenai River from Cooper Landing on his raft. Most parts of the Kenai are off limits for motors, so rafts are the preferred mode of transportation. Of course, we had to stop and fish at a couple of places along our 10-mile float. This was before the salmon were running so we could actually make it down the river.
Being able to take the time to enjoy this amazing piece of earth is something I will never forget. I’ll get to my next encounter with this legendary river later; there is a reason it is so popular! We took advantage of the fact that we would be in Alaska while Ayla turned two and decided to do her two year pictures at Cooper Landing. We had to reschedule multiple times due to weather, we wanted to actually be able to see mountains and the blue of Kenai Lake in our pictures. When we were finally able to make the schedule work, Ayla decided she wasn’t going to cooperate that day. We spent most of the two hours trying to get one decent picture of her in between her crying. But as you can see below, it was worth it!
Seward
If you take the intersection to get on Alaska Highway 9 instead of staying on 1 to get to Cooper Landing, you will end up at Seward, Alaska. This as another place we visited often. Seward is a port city on Resurrection Bay on the Gulf of Alaska. It is located about 125 miles from Anchorage, but it is well worth the trip. Our first experience at Seward was for Mermaid Fest. Mermaid Fest celebrates the opening of the port every year to symbolize rejuvenation as all the businesses open up after the winter and prepare for another busy summer.
The festival is packed with vendors, bands and food to get the summer started right. It is held the weekend before Memorial Day, before all the tourists come to Alaska. Seward is packed with vendors, bands, food trucks, and more to kick off their tourist season. They have pride in their city and want to celebrate with each other before the first cruise ships typically come in. A lot of people from Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula come here to help celebrate the start of summer.
Seward is also the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. Most of this park is observed from the water, but part of it, including the Exit Glacier, can be accessed by car just outside of Seward. There are many excursions that depart from the port at Seward. I took a halibut charter out of Seward with my uncle when he and my aunt came to visit us and a glacier/wildlife tour when my parents and some of Fae’s family came to visit.
Halibut Fishing
The halibut charter was amazing. My dad’s cousin set it up while my uncle was in the state. He had a little more knowledge then I did so he was able to get us on a smaller boat that was him, my uncle, one other person and me, instead of a big packed boat with 20+ people. We went close to Montague Island, which is about 60 miles from Seward by boat. Luckily, the Gulf of Alaska was calm that day so we were able to make pretty good time and get fishing right away. What was nice about being on the smaller boat with less people was we were able to fish for larger halibut instead of just trying to have everyone to catch something.
You are allowed to keep two halibut. One can be any size, but the other one must be less than 28 inches in length. Halibut can grow up to 9 feet long and weigh up to 700 pounds. They hang out in schools and it is easy to find small ones. Locals call these chickens, so chicken holes are commonly used by larger boats to generate fish for people to catch. We were able to try out spots that still produced a lot of fish, which allowed us to catch bigger ones. We were all able to get our fish over 28 inches in the boat. With a small boat it was just the captain; he didn’t have a deckhand or crew, so the he would shoot the bigger fish with a .22 to keep them from flopping and to get them in the boat without harming himself or the people who were fishing.
Pulling up some of those halibut is like pulling up a barn door in the water! They don’t fight much, but the shape and weight of them make it difficult to get them to the surface. It is definitely different than walleye fishing in Minnesota! Being out on the big water makes you realize just how big our world is. The internet and phones allow us to communicate instantaneously but traveling almost 60 miles by boat along the Alaskan coast puts everything into a different perspective.
More around Seward
The wildlife and glacier cruise were also a fun experience. It allows you to see this amazing state from a different viewpoint. We did the glacier cruise when Fae’s dad and aunts were up to visit along with my parents. Having family join us on the cruise was a lot of fun. Besides glaciers, we got to see a lot of wildlife, whales, goats, sheep, and all kinds of different birds on our cruise. It was a quick afternoon cruise that made a lifetime of memories.
The Alaska Sea Life Center is one of the major attractions in Seward. It serves as an exhibit center and a rehabilitation center for injured marine life. It is dedicated to studying and understanding the marine environment around Alaska. Seward also offers lots of parks and hiking trails with breathtaking views. Another popular expedition at Seward is to take water taxis to remote hiking trails and public use cabins. One popular place is Caine’s Head, an old WW II fort that offers lots of opportunity for exploring.
That will end my post today, but I will continue with the Kenai Peninsula in my next post. If you aren’t following our journey on social media, please click a link below.
Comments by christopherrylander
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