The City of Kenai proclaims its title. Highway signs look like this: Soldotna 14, City of Kenai 12, Anchorage 268. Yet this city is smaller than the other towns we've visited on the Kenai Peninsula. The City of Kenai boasts other wonderful peculiarities. Maynard's favorite is the constant flights of old planes: DC-6s and DC-7s, as well as Boeings. These bits of a 1950s childhood are now used to haul oil to tiny coastal villages in the fall and winter and to move catches of fish from overworked canneries to less busy ones during the spring and summer. My favorite selection from Kenai is the 80-year-old Russian Orthodox priest who mans both the local church and its gift shop a block away. He is a CT native, born in the town known for the International Silver Company. (Any guesses?) His late-1800s church is caving in because the huge, bronze candelabra (from a former parish on Kodiak Island) is so heavy that the sides of the building are collapsing. But help is on the way. The priest, his flock of 22, and many contributors have gathered $127,000, enough to earn a matching grant for the money needed to repair the building. They're just waiting for the return letter from Washington, D.C. (He sighed, mail takes so long to get to Alaska.)
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