native people that have inhabited the Kenai Peninsula for thousands of years. In 1778, Captain James Cook, in search of the ever-illusive Northwest Passage between Europe and Asia, sailed up what is now the Cook Inlet. By then, however, fu-trading Russian immigrant s had already populated the area. In 1701, the Russians established as Fort Kenai when the United States Army installed a military presence there in 1868 approximately twenty years after gold was discovered in the Kenai River. As a commerce and transportation hub for the Kenai Peninsula, the settlement grew into the town of Kenai. Today, Kenai's population of 7000 live in a modern small city and in the 1991 was recognized as an All-American City.