Kenai, Alaska
| Kenai Shk'ituk't |
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|---|---|
| City | |
Aerial view of part of downtown Kenai. The intersection of Willow Street and Barnacle Way is in the center of the foreground. Cook Inlet and Mount Redoubt are in the background.
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| Motto: "Village with a Past - City with a Future" | |
 Location of Kenai, Alaska |
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| Coordinates: 60°33′31″N 151°13′47″W / 60.55861°N 151.22972°WCoordinates: 60°33′31″N 151°13′47″W / 60.55861°N 151.22972°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Alaska |
| Borough | Kenai Peninsula |
| Incorporated | May 10, 1960 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Patricia "Pat" Porter |
| • State senator | Peter Micciche (R) |
| • State rep. | Gary Knopp (R) |
| Area | |
| • Total | 35.5 sq mi (92.0 km2) |
| • Land | 29.9 sq mi (77.4 km2) |
| • Water | 5.6 sq mi (14.6 km2) |
| Elevation | 72 ft (22 m) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 7,100 Ranked 7th |
| Time zone | Alaska (AKST) (UTC-9) |
| • Summer (DST) | AKDT (UTC-8) |
| ZIP codes | 99611, 99635 |
| Area code | 907 |
| FIPS code | 02-38420 |
| GNIS feature ID | 1413299, 2419407 |
| Website | www |
Kenai (/ˈkiːnaɪ/, KEY-nigh) (Dena'ina: Shk'ituk't) is a city in the Kenai Peninsula Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. The population was 7,100 as of the 2010 census.
The city of Kenai is named after the local Dena'ina (Tanaina) word 'ken' or 'kena', which means 'flat, meadow, open area with few trees; base, low ridge', according to the Dena'ina Topical Dictionary by James Kari, Ph.D., published in 2007. This describes the area along the mouth and portion of the Kenai River near the City of Kenai. Archaeological evidence suggests that the area was first occupied by the Kachemak people from 1000 B.C., until they were displaced by the Dena'ina Athabaskan people around 1000 A.D. Before the arrival of the Russians, Kenai was a Dena'ina village called Shk'ituk't, meaning "where we slide down." When Russian fur traders first arrived in 1741, about 1,000 Dena'ina lived in the village. The traders called the people "Kenaitze", which is a Russian term for "people of the flats", or "Kenai people". This name was later adopted when they were incorporated as the Kenaitze Indian Tribe in the early 1970s.
In 1786 Pytor Zaikov built Fort Nikolaevskaia for the Lebedev-Lastochkin Company on the site of modern Kenai, being the first European settlement on the Alaskan mainland. Hostilities surfaced between the natives and settlers in 1797, culminating in an incident in which the Dena'ina attacked Fort St. Nicholas, later dubbed the battle of Kenai. Over one hundred deaths occurred from all involved parties. Later, in 1838, the introduction of smallpox killed one half of the Dena'ina population.
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