Victor Holm Property
Restoration
Work Begins on Kenai Peninsula’s Oldest Homestead Cabin
On May 11 through 14, Kachemak
Heritage Land Trust (KHLT)
hosted a hands-on restoration workshop at the historic
Victor Holm cabin on the Kasilof River, which is now thought
to be the oldest homestead cabin on the Kenai Peninsula.
The training, Stabilization and Preservation Techniques
for Historic Log Structures, was attended by 15
participants representing the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of
Indian Affairs, Kodiak Baranov Museum, the Cultural Services
Division of Canada’s Yukon Territory, among others.
Victor
Holm was a Finnish-American who traveled to Alaska in 1890
to help build and work at the salmon cannery at the mouth of
the Kasilof River. In 1921, Holm acquired a homestead
patent along the River and lived there until the mid-1940s.
When Victor left Alaska, he left his belongings behind,
including ingenious pieces of homemade furniture, old
newspapers, maps, and much more.
In 1999, Kachemak Heritage Land
Trust accepted a donation of the 1.37-acre Victor Holm
parcel and the historically significant buildings on site to
maintain for historic and cultural values. The original 13’
X 15’ Victor Holm cabin is a fine example of a pre-gold rush
homestead building and is now thought to be the oldest
surviving homestead cabin on the Kenai Peninsula. The cabin
is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The hands-on restoration workshop taught participants the
methods of replacing and preserving sill and wall logs in a
hewn log structure, and included topics such as: scribing
and measuring techniques, reproducing corner notching,
replacing sill logs, hewing techniques, and historic
preservation ethics. Most importantly, participants were
trained in the rigorous process that must be completed to
meet state and federal requirements for the restoration of
historic structures. Within that process, historic
archeology, cultural landscapes, regional architecture,
preservation theory, and preservation planning was
discussed.
The workshop was sponsored in partnership by KHLT and the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Kenai National Wildlife
Refuge, with assistance from the Alaska State Historic
Preservation Office, Homer’s Society of Natural History
(Pratt Museum), and the Kasilof Regional Historic
Association. To learn more about the cabin and its
contents, visit:
www.kpbsd.k12.ak.us/kbeach/vholm.
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