We are your portal to Alaska's Adventure Highways, the Edgerton gateway to Wrangell St. Elias National Park, and a home to Alaskans with true Pioneer spirit.
There are few paved roads left in Alaska where you can drive for miles and miles without seeing another car. Kenny Lake (pop. 410) is on the Alaskan road less travelled.
Out here, you set your own pace.
Welcome to Kenny Lake, Alaska! Where are we? Well, Kenny Lake is not only considered by many to include the Richardson Hwy between Copper Center, Willow Lake and Upper Tonsina River, but also a long, quiet stretch of road called the Edgerton Highway. The community could possibly extend 33 miles down from the Richardson into the remote town of Chitina on the Copper River; nobody knows for sure. The Merc sits on 35 acres of mostly wooded acreage, right "downtown" Kenny Lake. Air pollution, overpopulation, wall-to-wall fishing spots, paved hiking trails and long lines of buses and RVs have yet to arrive in our little neck of the woods. There's still plenty of room to roam here for everybody.
This is rural Alaska, untouched by big development, undiscovered by the crowds.
The only road access to Wrangell St. Elias and McCarthy The eastern Glenn Hwy, the Richardson Hwy, Glennallen and Copper Center are the western road lookouts toward Wrangell St. Elias National Park, home to nine of North America's highest mountains. Four of these mountains can be seen from the Mercantile parking lot. There are great views of the Wrangells, the Alaska, and the Chugach Mountains to be seen from every angle around the Copper River Basin, but to actually get in or out of the Wrangell mountains from the west, unless you fly, walk, mush, or come by river, you have to drive through Kenny Lake.
Tourist accomodations and activities This area has a lot to offer visitors. Across the Copper River Basin, old copper, gold, and silver mines sit deserted. Backwoods hikers will find edible plants and artifacts everywhere (and the Merc carries lots of bug dope). Pickable diamond willow grows in wild abundance. Explorers might find anything from gold flakes to abandoned classic cars to giant mastadon thighbones. The Merc is a pick-up point for Backcountry Connections, whose vans will take you where your tires don't want to go. The whole region has seasoned Alaskan guides and equipment available for visitors who want to "do it all." Locals provide accomodations and activities, and there are miles of paved bicycle paths and rugged off-road 4x4, dogsled, and backwoods trails to the bluffs overlooking the Copper River.
Backwoods trails, wildlife viewing and fishing Kenny Lake was built on a lake that over the last century dwindled into a pond, but the inclusive community boasts of lakes and river fishing spots for trout, grayling, and red salmon runs. (When fishing be very careful on the banks!) Wildlife can be found on both the new and old road and it is regularly seen from the rivers, backroads and trails: geese, eagles, hawks, owls, magpies, ravens, many smaller avian species, black, brown, and grizzly bear, fox, lynx, beaver, martin, ermine, caribou, buffalo, moose, porcupine, and snowshoe rabbits. Seasonal fishing openers vary year-to-year. Hunting season opens August 10 (this is a protected subsistence area; many residents live off the land).
Kenny Lake is a 100 year old base camp Kenny Lake originated in 1910 as an Alaska Road Commission (ARC) Roadhouse for the newly built Valdez - Fairbanks - Chitina Military Road. Renamed in honor of its U.S. Army Engineer, the Old and New Edgerton Highways are still home to many rest-stops and overnight accomodations. Today this western road entrance serves the needs of mainly Alaskans and scattered travelers on their way to the Wrangell Mountains, Lower Tonsina, the Copper River, Chitina, the Village, Silver Lake, McCarthy, and Kennicott. We are centrally located in the Copper River Basin, and like Governor Edgerton of the Panama Canal Zone during WWII knew, we make an excellent base camp. So leave your big rigs here while you go traveling, hunting, fishing, dip netting, working, or exploring the rest of our old-fashioned neighborhood. We'll keep our eye on it for you.
Don't miss your opportunity to visit the old Alaska...
