Built in commemoration of Kenai’s 200th anniversary, the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center is one of the premiere cultural attractions on the Kenai Peninsula. The facility houses museum displays and exhibits, hosts original and traveling art exhibitions, and offers a variety of cultural and natural history programs throughout the year. The museum features Athabascan, Aleut and Russian cultural exhibits, homesteading, mining, commercial fishing, and oil industry history displays, and a natural history room with mammal, bird and fish exhibits.

Open year-round. (907) 283-1991.

Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center
11471 Kenai Spur Hwy

Located in Old Town Kenai, the Kenai Fine Arts Center provides studio space for members of the Peninsula Art Guild and the Kenai Potters Guild, hosts monthly art exhibitions, maintains an artist sales gallery, and offers a variety of art workshops for adults and children.

Open year-round. (907) 283-7040.

Kenai Fine Arts Center
810 Cook Ave

Kenai Peninsula College is located along the bluffs of the Kenai River between Kenai and Soldotna. The art department has a small exhibition gallery, which features monthly art exhibitions by artists from all over Alaska. Run during the school year, the gallery is free and open to the public, Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.

The college is also the site of the annual Summer Institute for the Arts held each June. The program offers art education instruction to teachers and students and is produced by the Alaska Alliance for Excellence in Art Education.

Kenai Peninsula College
34820 College Rd

(907) 262-0300. www.uaa.alaska.edu/kenai.

Opened in April 2000, the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska is the 39th in a worldwide network of Challenger Centers. First created in the wake of the 1986 Challenger disaster, Challenger Learning Centers have a goal of inspiring young people to stay in school and study science, math and technology. Using space as a medium, young people span the academic areas as well as learn valuable skills in problem solving, communication and teamwork. Students coming to the facility to partake in a simulated space mission act as astronauts aboard a space station or mission controllers supporting the crew back on earth.

Challenger Learning Center of Alaska
9711 Kenai Spur Hwy

Summer youth camps are available for K- 12 students. (907) 283-2000. www.akchallenger.org.

Soldotna is the last place in America to incorporate itself as a city within the framework of the Homestead Act. The Soldotna Homestead Museum preserves this history in the setting of a homesteaders’ village, with wildlife displays and Native artifacts.

Soldotna Homestead Museum
44790 Sterling Hwy

Open May 15 through September 15. Winter Virtual Tours available at www.geocities.com/soldotnamuseum.