Nanwalek (‘place by lagoon’; Russian: Нануалек), formerly Alexandrovsk (Russian: Александровск) and later English Bay, is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Alaska, United States, that contains a traditional Alutiiq village.

[3] Subsistence activities are a large part of the culture for indigenous people, and Nanwalek is no exception, especially when it comes to salmon and seal harvesting.

Nanwalek and Port Graham are located near the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula and are separated by less than 5 miles (8 km).

The Alaska Marine Highway System provides service to nearby Seldovia (located only 10 miles (16 km) up the coast line).

A state-owned 1,850-by-50-foot (564 by 15 m) gravel airstrip sits atop a natural spit which divides the small lagoon from the southern mouth of Cook Inlet.

It is Augustine (the most active volcano of the eastern Aleutian arc), 50 miles (80 km) due west across Cook Inlet, which makes life nasty in Nanwalek, Port Graham, Seldovia and Homer when it erupts, as it most recently has done in 1986 and 2006.

[7] In the summer of 1794, the fortress was moved to a new, higher place, since the old structures had rotted and had begun to collapse as a result of high tides.

A Russian Orthodox church consecrated to Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam was built in the community in 1870 (only three years after the sale of Alaska by Russia to the United States).

A replacement church building was constructed in 1930 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Orthodox Church in Alaska can trace its activities back to early Russian missionaries.