AUTHOR’S NOTE: Seven years after his friend William Weaver nearly drowned in Kenai Lake while returning from guiding a wealthy East Coast hunter in the Kenai Mountains, Seward’s Benjamin Swesey guided a pair of New Yorkers into the mountains for what would prove to be his final guiding job.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Danger was inherent in the job. Although his fellow hunting guide, William Weaver, had narrowly escaped drowning in Kenai Lake in October 1910, Ben Swesey was undeterred. Swesey, by 1911, had been a licensed guide for only a year, but he was already developing a sterling reputation for his knowledge, his expertise and his warm personality.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Michigan’s hard-luck Swesey clan sprang into existence because of the misfortunes of the Basom clan. All those trials and tribulations, however, led Benjamin Swesey to a life of adventure on the Kenai Peninsula.

More than a hundred years after Ben Swesey and Bill Weaver steered an outboard-powered dory out of Resurrection Bay and were never seen again, an American video broadcaster included a segment about their disappearance on his YouTube channel.

Over the past 50 years or more, the City of Kenai has attempted on several occasions to capitalize on its long history, particularly on the remnants of the past still evident at this gathering place near the mouth of the Kenai River.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: After the agricultural experiment station in Kenai closed May 1, 1908, Alaska station supervisor C.C. Georgeson had to decide the fate of the infrastructure at the decade-old facility.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: By 1907, the end of the line had nearly arrived for Kenai’s agricultural experiment station, which had begun operation just north of the village in 1899.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A presidential executive order in January 1899 had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian Orthodox Church property in the village of Kenai for the creation of an agricultural experiment station. By 1904, the superintendent of the Kenai Station, P.H. Ross, under the supervision of Sitka’s Prof. C.C. Georgeson, was focused almost solely on dairy and beef production.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A presidential executive order in January 1899 had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian Orthodox Church property in the village of Kenai for the creation of an agricultural experiment station. By 1902, the superintendent of this station, H.P. Nielsen, under the supervision of Sitka’s Prof. C.C. Georgeson, began changing the station’s focus to a dairy and beef farm.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Presidential Executive Order #148, in January 1899, had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian Orthodox Church property in the village of Kenai for the creation of an agricultural experiment station. The superintendent of this new station, H.P. Nielsen, under the supervision of Sitka’s Prof. C.C. Georgeson, continued to expand his farming operation and adjust to village life.