Fran Tofflemire retired in 2008 and moved to Alaska.

Almost immediately, she started exploring the Last Frontier. She’s been halibut fishing out of Homer, on a sightseeing cruise out of Seward and flightseeing over Skilak Lake.

“I just wish I had moved to Alaska when I was young enough to enjoy all the wonderful things,” she said.

Fran, now 68, lived most of her life in Oregon. She spent her adult life, and much of her youth, in Salem. But her new home suits her well.

“It’s more peaceful, more beautiful, more God’s country,” Fran said.

Kenai’s council agreed to purchase new dump trucks and hire a contractor for the Kenai boating facility at its Wednesday meeting.

The council unanimously agreed to award low-bidder American Marine Corporation a contract for work at the boating facility. The $64,851.52 contract is for cathodic protection and repair of a piling, according to Rick Koch, Kenai’s city manager.

The cathodic work will be done on a dock and on a gangway. That work involves replacing a section of pipe, filling it with concrete and adding protection from corrosion.

A pair of helicopters have been buzzing over Kenai for the past week as part of the seismic work being done by Buccaneer Alaska.

Buccaneer is hoping the seismic work will eventually give it a better idea where oil and natural gas deposits are on the central Kenai Peninsula.

Right now, work is underway north of the Kenai Spur Highway on land owned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust.

“It’s ... the heliportable drilling,” said John Land, the lead permit agent for Weems Geophysical. 

Darth Vader, taco sauce packets, men in drag and black widows weren’t the strangest sights at the eighth annual She Can Ski on Sunday.

That designation went to the snowshoers, a new participant in the race, and relative newcomer to the Tsalteshi Trails system.

Tom Seggerman said that snowshoers were invited to the event for the first time because last fall, the Tsalteshi Trails Association decided to allow snowshoers to use the Wolverine trail. Now, the board is working with snowshoers to create access to other trails for that group of outdoor enthusiasts.