Dyeing to count — Fish and Game tests new way to estimate smolt numbers

Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter
While many Americans mark spring by dyeing chicken eggs, Bill Glick marks spring by dyeing sockeye salmon smolt.
Each spring, Glick, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game fish biologist, captures a few thousand Kenai River sockeye smolt, dyes them gold and releases them back into the river. Kenai River smolt dyeing began in [...]

Kenai River on the rise — Dammed lake behind Skilak Glacier lets loose

Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter
Last week, Jim Coe witnessed signs of a phenomenon that he wouldn’t usually expect to occur until after the blueberries had fully ripened and hares had begun to grow white coats. U.S. Geological Survey hydrographs charting water levels in the Kenai River indicated that after peaking on Wednesday, water levels in the Kenai [...]

Talk about technology… Web site out to preserve, spread area’s Native dialect

Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter
People have spoken Dena’ina on the Kenai Peninsula longer than any other language, but the chances of hearing anyone speak Dena’ina on the peninsula today are slim to none. Fewer than 50 Dena’ina speakers remain, and the last speaker of the Kenai dialect of Dena’ina, Fred Mamaloff, died in 2006.
Of the few remaining [...]

Good as gold — Chilkoot Trail sparkles for modern stampeders

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter
9:30 a.m. Wednesday, July 8, 2009 — The view looking back from the summit of the Chilkoot Pass is one of accomplishment.
Rimmed by glacier-strewn mountain tops, the rapidly descending trail used in the Klondike gold rush stampede of 1897-98 picks its way through the twisting valley floor below, over the boulders climbed, [...]

Banding together — Family joins forces to bring David Allan Coe concert to town

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter
Dean Norris has elevated diehard fan status to a new level.
He grew up listening to “good-old country music,” he said — Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and David Allan Coe.
“All those guys were kind of top-notch to me. That’s what I’ve listened to since I was 5 or 6 years old. [...]

Science of the Seasons: No need to crane for a look at this super fly

By Dr. David Wartinbee, for the Redoubt Reporter
Buzzing and bouncing on the side of the house, under your eaves and above the grass lurks a creature that must be the super ninja version and the biggest mosquito you have ever seen. It looks big enough to take a full unit of blood at one sitting. [...]

Hooked on Alaska: On the bite away from the crowds

By Mark Conway, for the Redoubt Reporter
Freshwater fishing on the Kenai Peninsula has about as many opportunities for different fish to fish for as it has different areas to fish. Being on the Kenai Peninsula for the past 15 years, I have to get out of the Kenai River box of thinking, and realize that [...]

Almanac: Driven to leave their mark — Homesteaders put their stamp on peninsula’s roadways

Editor’s note: This is part two of a history of some of the road names on the central Kenai Peninsula. Part one, published last week, covered roads off the Sterling Highway from Three Johns Street at Mile 76 to Echo Lake and Gaswell roads at Mile 100. Part two covers roads out to Webb-Ramsell Road [...]

Plugged In: Balanced exposure, contrast not a gray area

By Joseph Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter
Last week, we discussed why the Zone System is the classic approach to making exhibition-grade photographic prints and why its use with film required a degree of technical knowledge and personal discipline that generally confined its use to very serious photographers.
Digital technology has changed all that, not only for [...]

Hot dogs, Jesus on the side — Dipnetters get free food, Bibles from Baptist missionaries

Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter
Vladimir Netsvetayev, of Wasilla, arrived at the mouth of the Kenai River on Friday morning determined to dipnet enough sockeye salmon to feed his big family with plenty of fish for the year. But dipnetting made him hungry, and when a tent of Baptist mission volunteers arrived to hand out free food and [...]

Sickeningly familiar — Mother relives pain of daughter lost to cancer as youngest child falls ill from brain condition

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter
In a faint twinkle of light, Marcia Jacobs felt the full magnitude of motherhood, in all its unfathomable depth and intricacy, just five weeks into her pregnancy with Emily.
That’s how soon her doctor could detect a fetal heartbeat, which shows up as a blinking light on a screen.
“He checked and he’s like, [...]

Kenai River users get a say — Study seeks information about activities, problems on the Kenai

Patrice Kohl
Redoubt Reporter
Come summer, the Kenai River becomes a recreational circus. King salmon fishermen clog the river with drift boats, motorboats and guided boats, sockeye salmon fishermen crowd the river’s banks and dipnetters flock to the river’s mouth. This frenzy of activity can bring fishing groups, landowners, nonfishing user groups and bears into conflict, and [...]