Ninilchik

Ninilchik might not look like a retirement community now, but that's how it began.

In the mid-1800s, Russian American Company employees were reaching pensioner age and wanting to remain in Alaska, so the company established settlements where these pensioners and their Native or Creole (a mixture of Native and non-Native) wives and children could live independently. Ninilchik was one of those settlements.

Small log homes built near the mouth of Ninilchik River were heated with coal collected along the beach. Gardens produced fresh vegetables. Moose, fish and razor clams provided fresh meat.

Crosses in the cemetery of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Russian Orthodox Church bear the names of the village's founding families. Overlooking the village, the church is a much-photographed structure and the frequent subject of paintings, postcards and calendars.

Ninilchik's first English-speaking school was established in 1911. Before the first plane landed in Ninilchik in 1929, boats on the inlet, sled dogs in winter and walking the beaches in summer and winter allowed villagers to visit their peninsula neighbors. In the 1940s, the Sterling Highway opened the area to automobile traffic.

Commercial fishing was once Ninilchik's economic mainstay. Some of the community's 800 residents continue that lifestyle today, while others work at small local businesses, operate fishing charters and bed and breakfasts during the summer, provide road maintenance through the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, or are employed at Ninilchik School or Ninilchik Traditional Council. Others find employment in the neighboring communities of Homer, Soldotna and Kenai, or are employed in Alaska's oil industry on Cook Inlet or Prudhoe Bay.

Visitors flock to the area in the summer, fishing in Ninilchik River and Deep Creek, launching boats to fish on Cook Inlet, and clamming along the inlet's shore. From Memorial Day weekend until the end of summer, private and state campgrounds fill with a summer crowd. A boat launch site at Deep Creek stays busy with fishermen on private and charter boats eager to hook into a halibut or king salmon on the inlet's salt water.

A Memorial Day weekend pancake breakfast feeds hundreds of visitors and locals, and raises funds for Ninilchik Emergency Services, a volunteer organization.

The Kenai Peninsula State Fair, nicknamed the state's "biggest little fair in Alaska," is Ninilchik's pride and joy and draws thousands of visitors the three days its gates are open during the third weekend of August.

The Ninilchik Rodeo has drawn increasingly bigger audiences and participants since it began in the late 1960s.

During the winter, Ninilchik becomes a beehive of activity for snowmachiners. Backcountry routes offer scenic rides through forests and across frozen lakes to the peninsula's high country and the Caribou Hills.

Across Cook Inlet, 10,195-foot Mount Redoubt and 10,013-foot Mount Iliamna keep watch. Redoubt's most recent eruptions were in 1989 and 1990, and caused damage and revenue loss totaling $160 million, making it the second most costly volcanic eruption in U.S. history. Iliamna's last eruption was in 1952, but it is not uncommon to see plumes of steam rising from its peaks.

For more information:

Kenai Peninsula State Fair, (907) 567-3670

Ninilchik Chamber of Commerce, phone 567-3571, Web www.ninilchikchamber.com/

Ninilchik Community Library, (907) 567-3333

State campgrounds: www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/index.htm.