Thursday, June 15, 2023
Today is my birthday and we are heading to Seward, Alaska for a week. It is rainy and cloudy with a temperature of 45 degrees as we leave Ninilchik, Alaska. The temperature would only reach 55 degrees by the afternoon.
We are traveling along the Sterling Highway (Alaska Hwy 1 North) back through Soldotna.
And past the Kenai Area Park Headquarters and Scout Lake Recreation Site.
We also go by the Skilak Lake Road and soon we are only about 75 miles from Seward, Alaska. We have gone more than half of the 167 miles we will have traveled today.
The scenery is a lot of what we have seen for awhile -- lots of mountains sprayed with patches of snow and plenty of forests.
We are now near Cooper Landing, Alaska and the Russian River Campground (where our friends Brian and Karen Burk will be staying in a few weeks).
Cooper Landing has a population of 250 and an elevation of 450 feet. It is a small town situated along the shores of the Kenai Lake and meets up with the Kenai River. The striking beauty of the towering Kenai Mountains and the the fiercely blue Kenai Lake are simply breathtaking. Cooper Landing was originally settled by prospector Joseph Cooper. Joseph Cooper was a miner who discovered gold there in 1894.
We then drive by the Kenai Lake, which is a large "zig-zag" shaped lake on the Kenai Peninsula. The lake forms the headwaters of the Kenai River and is itself a destination for fishing. The Dena'lina call the lake "Sqilan Bena" meaning "ridge lake place".
Soon we pass through Moose Pass, which we end up coming back to later in the week to see the sights in the area.
We then run into a couple of areas of road construction which delays our travels as we have many times had to wait on a pilot vehicle through the construction.
And as we pass the Grayling Lake Trail, we are now within about 13 miles from Seward.
We pass by Bear Lake Road (which is where we will go to see the Salmon Weir later in the week) and drive by the turnoff for Exit Glacier and the Kenai Fjords National Park (which we will also see at a later date).
We have finally arrived at Seward.
Seward is located at sea level and has a population of 2,740. Seward is located at the head of Resurrection Bay, a stunning fjord on the Gulf of Alaska. It is located on the east coast of Kenai Peninsula about 127 miles south of Anchorage.
Seward, the "Gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park," is a picturesque community nestled between high mountain ranges on a small rise stretching from Resurrection Bay to the foot of Mount Marathon. Seward was established in 1903 by railroad surveyors as an ice-free port and ocean terminal/supply center. The city was named for William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson, who was instrumental in arranging the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.
We are finally to Nash Road which we take to get to JJK Campsites where we will be staying for a week.
JJK Campsites is a campground on Nash Road just north of Seward. It is a pretty small campground, nothing fancy with electric sites for $30 and potable water available. We stayed for 7 nights, so got our 7th night free. (Total cost for the week was $180.)
Entrance into the campsite above and below (you can see our view of the mountains as well).
Our campsite is sight #16, which is a short jaunt to the river that Mel will try his hand at snag fishing in a few days.
Every day that we drive along Nash Road into Seward, we see many trumpeter swans on the nearby pond. Later in our stay, they had six little baby swans.
On our way into Seward, we saw a Silversea cruise ship, the "Silver Whisper" in port.
We drove by the Dale R. Lindsey Railroad Seward Intermodal cruise ship terminal.
And then we drove by the Harbor 360 Hotel where we will meet to take the Major Marine full-day Kenai Fjords National Park tour -- exploring wildlife and the tidewater glaciers of the Kenai Fjords National Park on another day.
Next we drove out to Lowell Point Road, which took us to Lowell Point State Recreation Site and Lowell Point, which is 2-1/2 miles past the town of Seward at the end of the road.
The Lowell Point Road took us past the UAF Seward Marine Center to a bridge with a large man-made waterfall (see below).
The pictures below are of Resurrection Bay and the steeply sloping mountainside.
Mel wanted to stop at the Seward Brewery to sample their craft beers.
But since it was my birthday, I decided to have "craft root beer" ice cream float. Nothing wrong with having dessert first, right? And it was really good.
Mel wanted to make one more stop before we went to the Highliner Restaurant for my birthday dinner. So we stopped at the Stoney Creek Brew House, where he had another craft brew.
Finally, we are at the Highliner Restaurant in Seward. This is the restaurant I chose to go to for my birthday dinner because I had heard that the chicken fried steak is delicious!
And the chicken fried steak, with homemade mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables, did not disappoint.
While Mel chose the fried halibut, fries (he had ordered it with sweet potato fries, so they brought them as well) and coleslaw. He said it was good. It definitely wasn't cheap to eat here (costing us around $83).
After dinner, we drove to the Seward KOA to meet up with our friends, Brian and Karen Burk -- who we met earlier on our Alaska journey and have made a point to meet up with again.
We had a wonderful visit with our friends, Brian and Karen! What a wonderful way to cap off a wonderful birthday. We got back to our campground around 10:30 p.m.
Friday, June 16, 2023
Another rainy, cloudy day in Seward, but even though the temperatures started out at 46 degrees and would only stretch to 55 degrees by the afternoon, we were still up for some adventure.
We first headed off to the industrial shipyard area of Seward as shown in the next few pictures.
We then headed off to Bear Lake Road to go to the Bear Creek Salmon Weir. We turned east on Bear Lake Road, and then the weir was just a half mile ahead on the left.
The weir is a salmon lift designed to trap all the wild red salmon that are swimming upstream to their spawning grounds at nearby Bear Lake in late spring/early summer. It is operated by the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association and monitored by the state.
In any given year, a certain amount of male red salmon are allowed to pass through the weir to fertilize the eggs. The rest of the males that come through are sorted out from the females and placed in yellow tubs to be taken to Seward Fisheries (AKA Icicles) for processing. A certain number of females are also allowed to pass through the weir to spawn. But before the females are allowed to continue their journey, they are dipped in a anesthetic solution and injected them with antibiotics before being released. This process is necessary to assure that the female salmon remain healthy enough to spawn and lay thousands of eggs before dying. After the right number of females are allowed upstream, the remaining will go to be processed as well.
At the weir, we were able to see the salmon jumping and trying to get up stream or in this case into the bucket where workers would then separate them. We also saw salmon in the relatively clear water by the bridge (shown in the next two pictures below).
The next several pictures show the salmon jumping at the Salmon Weir.
The next several pictures show a Fish and Game worker counting and sorting the salmon moving upstream. The trap enclosure (bucket) captures the salmon and allows the worker to move the salmon by using a net, and then sort them by male and female before releasing them to continue their journey upstream to spawn.
After we were finished watching the salmon weir, we decided to drive over to the Cook Inlet Trail Lakes Hatchery but they weren't open for the season yet.
So we decided to drive to Moose Pass.
Moose Pass has a population of 226 and is on the Kenai Peninsula just 29 miles north of Seward. This charming mountain village is located on the shores of scenic Upper Trail Lake. Moose Pass began as a construction camp on the Alaska Railroad in 1912. How it became called Moose Pass has been disputed with many versions including the 1903 version "that a mail carrier driving a team of dogs had considerable trouble gaining the right-of-way from a giant moose." After the post office was established in 1928, the post mistress, Leora (Estes) Roycroft, officially name the town Moose Pass.
The historic waterwheel shown below is a duplicated of the one Ed Estes' stepfather, Frank Roycroft, built in 1928 with a real grindstone. The original waterwheeld was usded to cut lumber for the family's homestead.
Morris the talking moose is shown above. He greets you with a goofy voice as soon as you walk in the door.
And the rain has not let up yet as we make our way back to our campsite in Seward.
As the rain lets up briefly, we decide to stop at a turnoff on the side of the highway that provides a glimpse into the Chugach culture and the Kenai Mountains - Turnagain Arm National Heritage area.
And then when we are back on the road again, the rain continues.
We spot a Celebrity cruise ship in port today.
And a must stop is the Visitor Center in Seward.
While we were in town, Mel stopped into the True Value Hardware store and picked up a fishing pole, some snag hooks, waders and a fishing license (Happy early Father's Day), and $180 later he was all set to try his hand at fishing for red salmon.
A close-up of the snag hooks are shown below.
Mel went down and found our friend, Brian Burk and his grandson Wyatt fishing before dinner.
We had salmon and twice-baked potatoes for dinner. And then Mel again went fishing with Brian and Wyatt at 10 p.m.
Saturday, June 17, 2023
Today was a beautifully sunny day with temperatures starting out at 48 degrees and reaching 64 degrees in the afternoon.
I worked on my blog, while Mel went fishing at 11:45 a.m. with our friends, Brian and Karen Burk and their grandson, Wyatt. They didn't come back to the campground until 5 p.m.
Even though Mel was unable to snag a salmon or too, he came back with some great pictures and memories.
Above is a picture of the Celebrity cruise from where they were fishing, while below is all the seagulls keeping close watch on all the fishermen.
Later, we drove over to Brian and Karen Burk's campsite at the Seward KOA for dinner -- delicious halibut and corn, we had cookies for dessert later. We saw a big eagle nest and bald eagles at their campground.
We didn't get home until 11 p.m. Mel hopes to go fishing again soon.
Hoping to snag a few salmon,
Shirley & Mel
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