[3] It drains an area on the north slope of the Alaska Range on the south edge of the Tanana Valley southwest of Fairbanks.

[4] It issues from the Nenana Glacier in the northern Alaska Range, southwest of Mount Deborah, approximately 100 mi (160 km) south of Fairbanks.

[5] Major archaeological sites located in the valley include Broken Mammoth and Swan Point, of late Pleistocene age.

[1] A century later, linguist William Bright wrote that the river's name derived from the Lower Tanana (Athabascan) word, neenano', meaning the "stopping-while-migrating stream".

Below this, however, the flow rate increases, and the Nenana becomes a Class I to II (medium) stream for the 38 miles (61 km) between Windy Station and McKinley Village Lodge.