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Photo provided by Shana Loshbaugh Dena’ina writer, translator and ethnographer Peter Kalifornsky speaks at the first Kenai Peninsula history conference held at Kenai Central High School on Nov. 7-8, 1974.

Life

Remembering the Kenai Peninsula’s 1st history conference — Part 1

Kenai Peninsula history gathering 50 years ago remains relevant and rousing

This photograph shows hunter/trapper Warren Melville Nutter near the lake at the foot of what was almost certainly Skilak Glacier, circa late 1930s. (Photo courtesy of the Nutter Family Collection)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Warren Melville Nutter spent the final 32 years of his life on the Kenai Peninsula, working…

File

Life

Minister’s Message: Being able to hear God

We need to open our eyes, and listen deeply to how God is speaking to us

This photo of Warren Melville Nutter, holding a dead juvenile bald eagle that he shot for the bounty, appeared in the May 1938 edition of The Alaska Sportsman Magazine. The photo was probably taken near the mouth of Hidden Creek on Skilak Lake.

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 4

Nutter had two trap-line cabins

This is a display of some of the hunting items that Warren Melville Nutter carried when he moved to Alaska in the summer of 1930. (Photo courtesy of the Nutter Family Collection)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 3

For the first 40 years of his life, most of Nutter’s experiences fit neatly into two categories: “Education”…

Virginia Walters (Courtesy photo)

Life

Life in the Pedestrian Lane: It’s a rank choice

In a little more than three weeks we will be voting again for state and national legislators and…

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Life

Minister’s Message: Experiments in faith

Here’s the experiment: resist the suspicion that prayer is just a bunch of empty religious talk

Gilbert Witt, pictured here in about 1930, was the troubled first husband of Muriel Grunert, who later married Warren Melville Nutter. (Public photo from ancestry.com)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 2

Warren Melville Nutter — known by many residents of the Kenai Peninsula as “William” or “Bill” — came…

In the Hope Cemetery, the grave marker for Warren Melville Nutter contains errors in his birth year and his age. The illustration, however, captures his adventurous spirit. (Photo courtesy of findagrave.com)

Life

Finding Mister Nutter — Part 1

It turned out that there were at least four other Nutters on the Kenai in the first half…

Baisden family dog, Tug, is photographed in this undated photo. (Photo courtesy Rhonda Baisden)

Opinion

Opinion: Ode to a good boy

The reality of saying goodbye hit us like a freight train

File

Life

Minister’s Message: How to stop ‘stinking thinking’ and experience true life

Breaking free from “stinking thinking” requires an intentional shift in who or what we allow to control our…

During the brief time (1933-34) that Bob Huttle (right) spent on Tustumena Lake, he documented a tremendous number of structures and described many of the people he met there. One of the men he traveled with frequently was John “Frenchy” Cannon (left), seen here at the Upper Bear Creek Cabin. (Photo courtesy of the Robert Huttle Collection)

Life

Cosmopolitan Tustumena — Part 2

Many individuals came to and departed from the Tustumena scene

Nick Varney

Life

Unhinged Alaska: Memories from the last great non hunt

I’m sure the regulations must be much simpler by now

Ole Frostad, pictured here in the 1930s, and his brother Erling lived seasonally and trapped at Tustumena Lake. They also fished commercially in the summers out of Kenai. (Photo courtesy of the Gary Titus Collection)

Life

Cosmopolitan Tustumena — Part 1

Few people these days would associate the word “cosmopolitan” with Tustumena Lake

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Life

Minister’s Message: Living in the community of faith

Being part of the community of faith is a refreshing blessing

Virginia Walters (Courtesy photo)

Life

Life in the Pedestrian Lane: Aging gracefully

I had a birthday this past week.

A lone hooligan fisherman heads upstream on the lower Kenai River to try his luck from Cunningham Memorial Park. (Clark Fair photo)

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 6

And thus, except for fading headlines, the Franke name all but disappeared from the annals of Kenai Peninsula…

Rev. Meredith Harber enjoys a s’more on a fall day in Alaska. (Photo by Meredith Harber/courtesy)

Life

Minister’s Message: Finding peace in the in-between

I find myself anxious when I know that winter is coming — even though there’s lots that I…

Pictured in an online public portrait is Anthony J. Dimond, the Anchorage judge who presided over the sentencing hearing of William Franke, who pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Ethen Cunningham in January 1948.

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 5

A hearing was held to determine the length of William Franke’s prison sentence

This excerpt from a survey dating back more than a century shows a large meander at about Mile 6 of the Kenai River. Along the outside of this river bend in 1948 were the homestead properties of Ethen Cunningham, William Franke and Charles “Windy” Wagner.

Life

States of Mind: The death of Ethen Cunningham — Part 4

Franke surrendered peacefully and confessed to the killing, but the motive for the crime remained in doubt.