I gently walk into the river, and feel the familiar push of water against my waders. Hearing the early morning wind pass through the cottonwood trees and the cry of the eagle passing overhead, I am thankful that yet another salmon season is upon us. Light comes into the sky, and I look down and up river at familiar faces. I reach my fingers into the pouch at my side filled with fresh salmon eggs from the previous day’s catch. Baiting my hook, I lean down to wash my hands in the cold water. My line falls into the casting cadence that is created by the dance between the river’s flow and the fishermen that line the Anchor River. 

As my eggs float through an eddy created by a large granite boulder that I have fished for many years, I wonder how many before me have fished this same eddy, created by this same rock. How many silver salmon have paused at this very spot on their spawning journey to take the bait? How many people before me have sat with the rain pelting down, cold hands holding their line, anticipating that promising tug at the other end?

Like our nomadic forefathers, the ability to gather from God’s wilderness, displayed in the power of the salmon run and the environment it supports, draws us together as a people. This is the story of the community in my backyard, the town of Anchor Point. At the banks of the Anchor River, which flows into Kachemak Bay, is where I’ve made my home. But there are many who came before me who were similarly drawn to this place of peace and abundance. 

The Anchor River and its runs of salmon and trout have seen many souls along its banks. From egg to smolt, the salmon have left the river’s headwaters, gone to sea, and returned to spawn for countless years. The fisheries that supply fishermen’s harvests today are the very ones the first inhabitants of this area caught in order to sustain life for the next generation. The semi-nomadic Dena’ina Indians migrated from the interior and fished the Anchor River as far back as 1200 AD. At an unknown time they settled along the river mouth and bluffs along the beach. The natives called the river valley, Q’es Nasten and named their site at Anchor Point, K’kaq, which is translated as “river mouth.” 

Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the river attracted many travelers in addition to its native inhabitants and settlers. In 1741, Russian navigator, Vitus Bering, was shipwrecked upon a remote Alaskan island. His crew wintered there, built a boat in the spring and returned with sea otter pelts. The luxurious pelts and the price they demanded created a fur industry that would forever change the culture and the people of Alaska. In the years following, the Russian fur trading companies built several forts and trading posts throughout the Kachemak Bay area and as far north as the Kasilof River. Unfortunately, like many settled lands, with new people came new diseases and dramatic changes for the native culture and lifestyle. 

From egg to smolt, the salmon have left the river’s headwaters, gone to sea, and returned to spawn for countless years.

In 1778, while looking for the Northwest Passage, Captain Cook and his crew aboard the Resolution, came up the inlet and had to drop their kedge or “light” anchor during a particularly bad storm. While doing so, the crew lost both an 8-inch hawser line and the anchor itself. Captain Cook noted this place on his chart, “Anchor Point,” and hoped to find the missing essential equipment later. Though the anchor was never located, Cook’s chart notation forever named our small town along the banks of the river.

The Russian period ended with the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867. Early settlers from Europe and North America came to the beach and river valley in the late 1800s and early 1900s to pursue placer gold mining. While the Anchor River never proved to be successful in helping fortune seekers eke out their livings from gold, it did provide food, shelter, and game to trap. Residents and visitors had access to prime hunting and trapping and thus created the influx of big-game hunters at the end of the 1800s and into the 1900s. 

Henry Wood Elliot, a naturalist and artist who repeatedly visited Alaska in the 1800s, wrote that:

“The greatest number of different mammals found wild in any one region of Alaska is to be recorded here:  bears, brown and black; deer (moose), reindeer (caribou) and the woodland caribou; big-horn mountain sheep (Dall sheep), a long haired variety (mountain goat). These animals are all shot. The trapped varieties are:  beaver, land-otter, porcupines, whistling marmot or woodchuck, large grey wolves, lynx, wolverine, marten, mink, ermine, weasels, and muskrats.”

By 1943, the population near the Anchor River had fallen to two men who spent their winters trapping and panning for a few gold flakes, and working in canneries during the summer. However, that year a courageous, devout woman, Ruth Kyllonen, traveled with her son by steamship to Homer. She came with dreams of building a Christian retreat in the Alaskan wilderness for servicemen needing a place to escape the traumas of war.  She purchased a 90 acre plot just south of the river overlooking the Cook Inlet. Over the next several years, Ruth wrote to churches from the lower 48 and several families moved to the area. While the dream of the military retreat unfortunately never came true, Ruth’s vision drew newcomers who wanted to experience the Last Frontier. Back then, when new arrivals reached Homer, via steamboat, they had to traverse approximately 15-20 miles along the beach with all of their belongings being drawn by horse and buggy. The round-trip journey to Anchor Point took three days due to the tides and time spent loading and off-loading. 

Many of these families chose land in the Anchor River valley because of the area’s abundant food sources. However, while the river offered sustenance, it also kept the community from growing toward the north. In order to traverse the river you needed to find a shallow spot at low tide, or a fallen cottonwood log. There was also a platform that was moved across the river with pulleys for large loads. In the mid-1940s, Clark Peterson built the Silver King Lodge near where the river diverges into its north and south forks. His store supplied groceries and other provisions needed by the pioneering homesteaders.

Back then, when new arrivals reached Homer, via steamboat, they had to traverse approximately 15-20 miles along the beach with all of their belongings being drawn by horse and buggy.

Sherman “Sherm” and Louvie “Vi” Chapman--also part of the Kyllonen Christian group--were the first to homestead on the north side of the river. A rutted path from the Chapman homestead down the hill to the river marked the beginnings of the Anchor Point stretch of the Sterling Highway.

In December of 1948, the road from Homer to Anchor Point was completed. Eighteen months later, the portions of the Sterling Highway from Anchor Point to Soldotna were finished. This joined the lower Peninsula to the port in Seward, and within the year, to Anchorage. Anchor Point is now known as the most westerly highway point in North America, and forever joined to the rest of the state. Once the road was complete, registered homesteads more than doubled in the following five years. By 1949, there were enough families in the area to necessitate a territorial school and a permanent post office. The road and the desire to conquer it was an invitation for many to explore the peninsula, but for many more it was the call of the river that led them to Anchor Point. 

Throughout Alaska there are similar stories tied to rivers, inlets and coves, but the common factor is the abundance of rich resources this unique place offers to those of us who seek to harvest with our hands. The next time you feel that promising tug at the end of the line, consider for a moment the many who have come before you. I hope all Alaskans stop and consider how fortunate they are to live in this Great Land and be a part of its continuing history.