Peninsula Clarion | The Newspaper of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula

Cleaning up the Samish

I wrote in this column last week that the Samish River's habitat and water quality had been degraded by sedimentation, elevated temperature, fecal contamination, and alteration and loss of riparian area. Earlier this week I saw evidence of all of that and more. Many small tributaries flow into the 3...

Fri, 10/28/2011 - 9:34am

LiDAR: Provides wealth of information

It was better than Christmas. I was handed the much anticipated Kenai Peninsula 2008 LiDAR data. For a GIS (Geographic Information System) analyst, it is like ice cream to a baby, and we were given 500 gigabytes of the stuff. I've distributed portions of the data to geologists and engineers, only to...

Fri, 10/21/2011 - 10:33am

On the Samish

BELLINGHAM, WASH. — The other day, I walked — or tried to walk — along the Samish River, I place I hadn’t been in more than 50 years. The Samish starts in the hills of northwestern Washington, winds past houses and farms and ends up in Samish Bay, Puget Sound. Compared to streams on the Kena...

Fri, 10/21/2011 - 10:24am

Pike Stoppers !

A killer is stalking the waters of Southcentral Alaska, lurking in the shadows and ambushing our wild salmon and trout! Many Southcentral lakes and streams are already empty of everything but the killer: northern pike. Soon many of our sportfishing opportunities may be gone. This message is part of ...

Fri, 10/14/2011 - 10:06am

The honey hole

In Week One as a snowbird from Alaska wintering in Washington state, two events stand out: holding my day-old great-granddaughter, Emilynn, and fishing on the Skagit River with my grandson, Doug Palmer. A few weeks ago, when I first told Doug that I'd be in Washington for the fall and winter, I'd hi...

Fri, 10/14/2011 - 10:01am

Kenai National Wildlife Refuge's 70th anniversary

On December 16, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8979 establishing the Kenai National Moose Range. The eve of its 70th anniversary presents an ideal moment to reflect on the history of the Moose Range, later to become the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. In Part I of this ...

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 10:16am

Eating like a king

This isn't about king salmon. It's more important than that. Eating can be one of the great pleasures of life. The trouble with pleasures is that they can be taken to extremes, which was my problem. Looking around, I've noticed that I'm not alone. Two out of three people seem to have the same proble...

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 10:11am