People

Many people love having their photo taken with the park welcome sign. This older version of the sign is from before the road was paved in 1999.

NPS Photo / A. Castellina

People have traveled through and lived in the area surrounding Kenai Fjords National Park for thousands of years. The rugged glacial environment, coastal fjords, and braided river drainages have presented successive and overlapping populations of Alaska Natives, Europeans, and Americans with rich resources in the form of marine mammals, fish, birds, fur bearing animals, and minerals.

Documentation of human use through archeology, oral tradition, and the historical record reveals a variety of human connections with the land which include subsistence, mineral extraction, transportation, recreation, and artistic expression.

The experiences and accomplishments of the people who have used, and continue to use, these lands illustrate the courage and resiliency of the human spirit.

 

The Sugpiaq of the Outer Kenai Coast

The Sugpiaq (also known as Alutiiq) are a maritime people who traditionally hunted and subsisted on the outer Kenai Peninsula coast. Archeological evidence indicates they have used the Kenai Fjords area for more than a 1,000 years.
The Port Graham Corporation was formed under the Alaska Native Settlement Act of 1971 to represent the Sugpiag people inhabiting the Kenai Fjords. Some of the land along the coastline of the park is owned by the Port Graham Corporation.
Learn more about the Sugpiaq and other Alaska Native cultures by visiting:

• Living Our Cultures, Sharing Our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska, which is on permanent exhibit at the Anchorage Museum through a partnership with the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center.
• The Alaska Native Heritage Center, a renowned cultural center and museum in Anchorage, is an exciting place where all people can come to expand their understanding of Alaska's Indigenous people.
• Sugpiat of the Lower Kenai Peninsula Coast (2004) by Ronald T. Stanek