If you’ve known us as KMTA, maybe you first met us through your child’s SnowSchool field trip, at the starting line of the Spencer Glacier Dash, or installing signs on the Iditarod National Historic Trail. Or maybe you received a grant through the sub-granting program we ran for more than 15 years, entered our photo contest, or used our field trip guide as a teacher or tour operator. In any of those settings, you might have heard “KMTA” used for two things: our nonprofit and the Kenai Mountains–Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area we manage. We’ve shared that shorthand for years. Today, we’re introducing a new public name for our nonprofit: Alaska Living Lands.
Our official nonprofit name has actually always been the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Corridor Communities Association, though most people have known us simply as KMTA. As our work has grown, we wanted a name that would make it easier to tell our organization apart from the Heritage Area we help care for. We also wanted it to better reflect what we do every day: connect people to place.
When Congress established the Kenai Mountains–Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area in 2009, it designated our nonprofit to steward it. The Heritage Area keeps the name Congress established by law, and we’ll continue to carry out the role Congress entrusted to us as Alaska Living Lands. The Heritage Area stretches from Beluga Point to Seward. Our nonprofit operates throughout that corridor and the neighboring communities whose cultural and historical ties extend beyond its boundaries.
So why Alaska Living Lands? Think about the trails and waterways people have traveled for generations, the knowledge and traditions the Dena’ina and Sugpiaq people carry forward, share, and practice, and the stories young people are writing today about growing up here. All of that is part of the living heritage of the Turnagain Arm and Kenai Peninsula. It’s alive and changing, just as we are. What earlier generations passed down shapes how we live and recreate here today, and the choices we make now help shape what we pass on for future generations to enjoy.
That’s what I hope you’ll hear in our new name. When a student gets to spend a school day learning outdoors in our public lands, when a neighbor shares a story that changes how we understand a familiar stretch of road, or when volunteers spend a Saturday working on a beloved local trail, people get to know this region a little better and have a hand in caring for it. Our job is to make more of those experiences possible, alongside the communities and partners who make this work what it is.
I’m grateful to everyone who’s been part of KMTA over the years. I hope you’ll see your contributions reflected in Alaska Living Lands. And if you’re just getting to know us, I hope you’ll find a way to join in. Come out for a program or a volunteer day, read a poem by a local student, or share a story of your own.
You belong in the story of this place.
Rachel Blakeslee
Executive Director
Alaska Living Lands