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Clark Fair

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Life

‘What’s in a name?’: Reviving a forgotten past — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a multi-part series about Kenai Peninsula places and landmarks that once…

Back in his younger days (the late 1940s), Willard Dunham drove a tour bus full of steamship passengers out of Seward to the Cooper Landing area, including a stop at what was then called Mud Lake. (Photo from his online 2019 obituary)

Life

‘What’s in a name?’: Reviving a forgotten past — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a series of articles concerning places and landmarks on the Kenai…

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Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Seasoned Seward outdoorsmen Ben Swesey and William Weaver left home on Oct. 15, 1917 in Swesey’s…

John P. Holman poses with his first Dall sheep ram, shot in 1917 while being guided by Ben Swesey in the Kenai Mountains. (Photo from Holman’s 1933 hunting memoir)

Life

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Seven years after his friend William Weaver nearly drowned in Kenai Lake while returning from guiding…

This image is the only confirmed photograph of guide Ben Swesey discovered by the author. The photo, from John P. Holman’s 1933 hunting memoir, “Sheep and Bear Trails,” shows Swesey working to remove the cape from a Dall sheep ram shot by Holman in 1917.

Life

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Danger was inherent in the job. Although his fellow hunting guide, William Weaver, had narrowly escaped…

This excerpt from a U.S. Geological Survey map shows the approximate location of Snug Harbor on lower Kenai Lake. It was in this area that William Weaver nearly drowned in 1910.

Life

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Michigan’s hard-luck Swesey clan sprang into existence because of the misfortunes of the Basom clan. All…

This screenshot from David Paulides’s “Missing 411” YouTube podcast shows the host beginning his talk about the disappearance of Ben Swesey and William Weaver.

Life

Ben Swesey: More to the story — Part 1

More than a hundred years after Ben Swesey and Bill Weaver steered an outboard-powered dory out of Resurrection…

Photo by Clark Fair This 2025 image of the former grounds of the agricultural experiment station in Kenai contains no buildings left over from the Kenai Station days. The oldest building now, completed in the late 1930s, is the tallest structure in this photograph.

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 8

Over the past 50 years or more, the City of Kenai has attempted on several occasions to capitalize…

Photo courtesy of the Arness Family Collection L. Keith McCullagh, pictured here aboard a ship in about 1915, was a U.S. Forest Service ranger charged with establishing a ranger station in Kenai, a task that led him to the agricultural experiment station there and into conflict with “Frenchy” Vian and his friends.

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 7

AUTHOR’S NOTE: After the agricultural experiment station in Kenai closed May 1, 1908, Alaska station supervisor C.C. Georgeson…

The cover of The Clenched Fist, the memoir by Alice M. Brooks and Willietta E. Kuppler concerning their 1911-14 teaching tenure in Kenai

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 6

AUTHOR’S NOTE: By 1907, the end of the line had nearly arrived for Kenai’s agricultural experiment station, which…

Prof. C.C. Georgeson, circa 1910s, inspects an apple tree on one of his Alaska agricultural experiment stations. (Image from the Rasmuson Library historical archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks)

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A presidential executive order in January 1899 had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian…

In his 1903 report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Prof. Charles Christian Georgeson included this photograph of efforts to break recently cleared ground at Kenai’s agricultural experiment station. The man behind the bull was either station superintendent Hans P. Nielsen or his assistant Pontus H. Ross.

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A presidential executive order in January 1899 had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian…

Photo from the Alaska State Library historical collection In Kenai, circa 1903, this trio was photographed on a well-used trail. Pictured are George S. Mearns, future Kenai postmaster; Kate R. Gompertz, Kenai resident; Hans P. Nielsen, superintendent of Kenai’s agricultural experiment station.

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Presidential Executive Order #148, in January 1899, had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian…

This 1903 photograph of mostly Kenai residents shows (back, far left) Hans Peter Nielsen, first superintendent of Kenai’s agricultural experiment station. Nielsen began work at the station in 1899 and resigned at the end of the 1903 season. (Photo from the Alaska State Library historical collection)

Life

The experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Presidential Executive Order #148, in January 1899, had set aside 320 acres of land near Russian…

This E.W. Merrill photograph shows Charles Christian Georgeson, special agent in charge of all agricultural experiment stations in Alaska, starting in 1898. (Photo from Alaska History Magazine, July-August 2020)

Life

The Experiment: Kenai becomes an agricultural test site — Part 1

Individuals deciding to explore Kenai’s historic district might start their journey by turning off the Kenai Spur Highway…

John W. Eddy was already a renowned outdoor adventurer and writer when he penned this book in 1930, 15 years after the mystery of King David Thurman’s disappearance had been solved. Eddy’s version of the story, which often featured wild speculation and deviated widely from the facts, became, for many years, the accepted recounting of events.

Life

King Thurman: An abbreviated life — Part 6

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The fate of King David Thurman, a Cooper Landing-area resident, had finally been learned in February…

Public photo from ancestry.com James Forrest Kalles (shown here with his daughters, Margaret and Emma) became the guardian of King David Thurman’s estate in early 1915 after Thurman went missing in 1914 and was presumed dead.

Life

King Thurman: An abbreviated life — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: King David Thurman left his Cooper Landing-area home in late July 1914 for another season of…

Emmett Krefting, age 6-7, at the Wible mining camping in 1907-07, about the time he first met King David Thurman. (Photo from the cover of Krefting’s memoir, Alaska’s Sourdough Kid)

Life

King Thurman: An abbreviated life — Part 4

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In 1913, King David Thurman, a Cooper Landing-area resident who often seemed one step ahead of…

This is part of the intake data entered when, in 1913, King David Thurman began his 50-day sentence in the Seward Jail for violating Alaska’s game laws. A 1911 attempt to nail Thurman for such a violation had failed.

Life

King Thurman: An abbreviated life — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: King David Thurman, a miner and trapper who lived and worked in the Cooper Landing area…

Photo from the L.H. Peterson Collection, Lot 8749, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Simon Wible’s mining camp on Canyon Creek, August 1911, four years after the summer in which Emmett Krefting met King David Thurman here.

Life

King Thurman: An abbreviated life — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: King David Thurman came to Alaska seeking gold. One of the earliest specific records of his…