Alaska | State Parks

Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge (King Salmon)

Sandwiched between Becharof National Wildlife Refuge to the north and Izembek NWR to the south, Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge presents a breathtakingly dramatic landscape made up of active volcanoes, towering mountain peaks, rolling tundra and rugged, wave-battered coastlines.

Chena River Lakes (North Pole)

The Chena Project offers a host of recreational opportunities and a variety of Alaskan scenery to enjoy throughtout the year. Watch our abundant wildlife, catch a fish, explore our trails or simply enjoy the Project in your own way; whether it be under the Midnight Sun or the Northern Lights.

Anchorage Recreation Sites (Anchorage)

The Recreation Program manages recreational use to administer visitor services, resource protection, tourism, volunteers and partnerships. The Iditarod National Historic Trail, the Unalakleet National Wild River and the Campbell Tract in Anchorage are administered under the program.

University of Alaska Museum (Fairbanks)

This museum curates, studies, and exhibits fossil collections from the public lands administered by BLM in Alaska. The museum collection includes more than 1, 000 bones from at least 6 varieties of dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Period (65 to 72 million years ago). Pleistocene (10-thousand-year-old to 2-million-year-old) fossils include mammoths, saber tooth tigers, bison, mastodons, camels and many other fauna.

Dall Sheep Viewing Area (Fairbanks)

Crossing the Brooks Range is one of the true motoring adventures available in North America. One of the best places to see Dall sheep in Alaska is on the rocky slopes of Atigun Pass (mile 240, elevation 4, 739 feet) along Dalton Highway. This is the highest point in the Alaska road system. The sheep may also be seen between the pass and Galbraith Lake (mile 275), as well as on Slope Mountain (miles 297-301).

Seward Highway (Anchorage)

Situated near Anchorage, the Seward Highway is a 127-mile drive through South Central Alaska which takes you through awesome natural beauty on the way to Seward.

Admiralty Island National Monument (Juneau)

Welcome to Admiralty Island National Monument, USDA Forest Service, with 955, 000 acres of wilderness in southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Admiralty's history is rich and long. However, the island is more than a monument to the past. It is life on Admiralty today and the relationships of living forms on the island that lend it worldwide significance to scientists and that merit the recognition and pride of the Nation.

Tongass National Forest (Ketchikan)

You can camp in a campground - or in a cabin. You can hike through dense forest, alpine meadow, or on a wooden trail through marshland called muskeg. You can explore world-class caves. You can enjoy salt water fjords and unending waterways by canoe or kayak, your own motor or sail boat, charter boat, ferry, or cruise ship. You can watch bears, eagles, whales, and countless other critters in their natural settings. You can visit glaciers by land or sea.

Chugach National Forest (Anchorage)

The mountains and waters of the Kenai Peninsula, the islands and glaciers of Prince William Sound, and the wetlands and birds of the Copper River Delta make this forest a prime destination for adventurers the world over.

Alagnak Wild River (King Salmon)

Alagnak Wild River is located in the beautiful Aleutian Range. The river provides unparalleled opportunities to experience the wilderness of the Alaska Peninsula.

Aleutian World War II National Historic Area (Unalaska)

The Aleutian World War II National Historic Area encompasses the historic footprint of the U.S. Army base Fort Schwatka. Located on Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Island Chain of Alaska, the fort was one of four coastal defense posts built to protect Dutch Harbor (the back door to the United States) during World War II, the fort is also highest coastal battery ever constructed in the United States.

Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve (King Salmon)

The Aniakchak Caldera, is the result of a series of eruptions, the latest in 1931. Nearly six miles in diameter and covering some ten square miles, it is one of the finest examples of dry caldera in the world. Located in the volcanically active Aleutian Mountains, the crater contains many outstanding examples of volcanic features, including lava flows, cinder cones, and explosion pits.

Capitol Hill Parks

Capitol Hill Parks includes those park areas managed by National Capital Parks-East between 2nd Streets NE and SE and the Anacostia River. Included in this group are Lincoln; Folger, Stanton; and Marion Parks; Maryland Avenue Triangles; Pennsylvania Avenue Medians; Squares and Triangles, including Seward Square, and Potomac Avenue Metro Stations, Twining Square; and otherinner-city triangles and squares.

Iditarod National HistoricTrail Recreation Management Area (Anchorage)

The Iditarod National Historic Trail is a network of 2, 037 miles of trails once used by ancient Alaska Natives and early 20th- century prospectors. The vegetation varies from coastal Sitka spruce to the alpine tundra of the Chugach Mountains and Alaska Range. Wildlife is plentiful and includes moose, caribou, black bear, brown bear, lynx, beaver, otter, marten, bald eagle, and all types of waterfowl. Fish species include salmon, steelhead, Dolly Varden, trout, and arctic graying.

Unalakleet Nat'l Wild Rvr Recreation Management Area (Anchorage)

The Unalakleet River is located in the northwestern part of Alaska and drains into Norton Sound. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of December 2, 1980, established the upper portionof the Unalakleet River as a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System to be administered by BLM. Approximately 65 miles have been designated as a "wild" river pursuant to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and is protected by a "corridor" of BLM managedland.

Kobuk Valley National Park (Kotzebue)

Kobuk Valley National Park is encircled by the Baird and Waring mountain ranges. The park povides protection for several important geographic features, including the central portion of the Kobuk River, the 25-sqaure-mile Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, and the Little Kobuk and Hunt River dunes. Sand created by the grinding action of ancient glaciers has been carried to the Kobuk Valley by both wind and water.

Noatak National Preserve (Kotzebue)

As one of North America's largest mountain-ringed river basins with an intact ecosystem, the Noatak River environs features some of the Artic's finest arrays of plants and animals. The river is classified as a national wild and scenic river, and offers surperlative wilderness float-trip opportunities - from deep in the Brooks Range to the tidewater of the Chukchi Sea.

Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (Homer)

Kachemak Bay is the largest reserve in the system. It is also one of the most productive, diverse and intensively used estuaries in the state of Alaska. The local community pursued the designation of Kachemak Bay as a National Estuarine Research Reserve to preserve the lifestyle and economy of the region.The reserve increases understanding and wise use of the bay and its resources. Kachemak Bay features extensive tidal mudflats, subtidal habitat and upland forests.

Beaver Creek (Fairbanks)

Beaver Creek NWR is a Class I, clear water river, that flows past jagged limestone peaks in the White Mountains and through the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge before joining the Yukon River. It may be the longest road-to-road float in North America.Those folks seeking true adventure can find it floating Beaver Creek National Wild River.

Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge (Fairbanks)

Kanuti National Wildlife refuge is, at 1.637 million acres, about the size of the state of Delaware. It sits atop the Arctic Circle, with approximately a third of the refuge above that meridian and two-thirds below. This bowl of gently rolling terrain, commonly referred to as Kanuti Flats, consists primarily of boreal forest, or taiga, studded with innumerable lakes, ponds and marshes. The region's typically short, hot summers give rise to numerous thunderstorms and lightning strikes.

Dalton Highway Recreation Management Area (Fairbanks)

Fort Egbert (Fairbanks)

The Fort is a former Yukon River U.S. Army post, which was established in 1899 to bring law and order to the Fortymile country during the Klondike gold rush. After the boom, an Army Signal Corps was established here to operate a telegraphy and wireless station until about 1925. Currently, BLM manages 5 restored structures in cooperation with the local Eagle Historical Society. Exhibits and tours are available in the summer.

Fortymile National Wild and Scenic River (Fairbanks)

Fortymile River is an extensive network of creeks and rivers in east-central Alaska, 392 miles of which have been given a National Wild and Scenic or Recreational River designation. Boaters have many choices for recreational trips through deep, winding canyons lined by forests of birch, spruce and aspen. Remnants of past mining operations dot the river banks as mementos of the area's rich mining history.

Gulkana National Wild and Scenic River (Glennallen)

The Gulkana is one of the 5 most used rivers in Alaska, primarily because of its easy access at the put-in and take-out points. The river is known for its recreational values, including excellent sport fishing, particularly for chinook (king) salmon during late June and early July. The Gulkana also contains sockeye salmon, grayling, and rainbow trout, as well as the northernmost population of steelhead trout in North America.

Mosquito Lake (Fairbanks)

The area has been occupied intermittently during the past 4, 000 years by the ancestors of the modern Nunamiut Eskimos. The site was probably a hunting ground for caribou and Dall sheep, and is significant in that it represents one of the earliest and best documented inland sites used by Eskimos.

Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge (Homer)

Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge is a place of great distances and greater dramas. Here winds whip through the grasses of rugged, wave-pounded islands; and active volcanoes simmer, venting steam above collars of fog. It is a place of contrasts, where relics of a past war slowly rust in deserted valleys, while, nearby, great forests of kelp team with life.

Kuskokwim Bay - Carter Spit (Anchorage)

The Carter Spit site includes 4 spits and the intertidal mudflats within Kuskokwim Bay and north of Goodnews Bay, on the southwest coast of Alaska. In the spring and fall, this area serves as an important site for migrating waterfowl, such as the northern pintail, greater scaup, green-winged teal, black scoter, Hudsonian godwit, bristle-thighed curlew, and Steller's eider. More than 120 species were observed during a recent fall migration.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Fairbanks)

Renowned for its wildlife, Arctic Refuge is inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals, ranging from the pygmy shrew to the bowhead whale. Best known are the polar, grizzly, and black bear; wolf, wolverine, Dall sheep, moose, muskox, and the animal that has come to symbolize the area's wildness, the free-roaming caribou. Thirty-six species of fish occur in Arctic Refuge waters, and 180 species of birds have been observed on the refuge.

Becharof National Wildlife Refuge (King Salmon)

Becharof National Wildlife Refuge is a land of contrasts. From its rugged coastline to the 4, 835-foot summit of the Mt. Peulik volcano (the name is taken from an Alaska Native word meaning "smoking, " or "smoking mountain"), it includes everything from tundra to braided, glacier-fed rivers to saw-toothed mountain ranges. But few would argue the assertion that the biological heart of the refuge is the lake that bears its name.

Innoko National Wildlife Refuge (McGrath)

Remote and isolated even by Alaska standards, the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most important waterfowl areas in West Central Interior Alaska. It was established by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. Conservation of fish and wildlife populations and habitats in their natural diversity is a focus of the refuge. Innoko National Wildlife Refuge can be roughly divided into two distinct habitat types.

Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (Soldotna)

Alaska's Kenai Peninsula is, in geologic terms, still quite "young, " since its entire land mass was covered by glacial ice as recently as 10, 000 years ago. Much of that frozen blanket still exists today, in the form of the more than 800-square mile Harding Ice Field, which the refuge "shares" with Kenai Fjords National Park. The grudging withdrawal of the Harding Ice Field has helped to make the lands of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge a "miniature Alaska.

Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge (Kodiak)

Today, Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge covers two thirds of Kodiak Island, all of Ban Island, and part of Afognak Island, and includes 1, 932, 953 acres, all of it accessible only by float plane or boat. Spruce forests dominate the northern part of Kodiak Island and the Afognak portion of the refuge, while southeastern Kodiak is covered with lush, grassy hummocks. There is no spot on refuge lands that is more than 15 miles from the ocean.

Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge (Galena)

The 3.5 million-acre Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge lies within the flood plain of the Koyukuk River, in a basin that extends from the Yukon River to the Purcell Mountains, which are foothills of the Brooks Range. This is a region of wetlands, home to fish, waterfowl, beaver and moose, and wooded lowlands where bears, wolves, lynx and marten prowl.

Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge (Galena)

The heart of Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge is a lowland basin of forests and wetlands that forms the floodplain of the meandering Nowitna River. The refuge's climate is typically marked by light precipitation, mild winds, long, hard winters and short, relatively warm, summers. The hills that circle the refuge lowlands are capped by alpine tundra. It takes a week in a canoe, or more than an hour in a small plane, to traverse the refuge's 2.1 million acres of pristine wildlife habitat.

Selawik National Wildlife Refuge (Kotzebue)

It could be argued that Selawik National Wildlife Refuge contains some of the most historically significant acreage in North America, as the refuge lands once formed part of the American portion of the vast Bering Land Bridge that, some scientists speculate, was the route followed by the ancestors of many of today's large mammals, as well as early humans, when traveling between Asia and the America's some 12, 000 years ago. Today, the refuge is home to a variety of wildlife.

Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge (Tok)

Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge is a dynamic landscape made up of forests, wetlands, tundra, lakes, mountains and glacial rivers bounded by the snowy peaks of the Alaska Range. This upper Tanana River valley has been called the "Tetlin Passage, " because it serves as a major migratory route for birds traveling to and from Canada, the lower 48 and both Central and South America. Many of these birds breed and nest on the refuge.

Togiak National Wildlife Refuge (Dillingham)

Dominated by the Ahklun Mountains in the north and the cold waters of Bristol Bay to the south, Togiak National Wildlife Refuge confronts the traveler with a kaleidoscope of landscapes. The natural forces that have shaped this land range from the violent and powerful to the geologically patient. Earthquakes and volcanoes filled the former role, and their marks can still be found, but it was the gradual advance and retreat of glacial ice that carved many of the physical features of this refuge.

Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge (Bethel)

The present day Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, incorporating the previously established Clarence Rhode, Nunivak and Hazen Bay Refuges, was consolidated in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Here, the waters of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers flow through a vast "treeless plain, " or tundra.

Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge (Fairbanks)

The third largest conservation area in the National Wildlife Refuge System, the 9 million acre Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge is located in eastern interior Alaska. It includes the Yukon Flats, a vast wetland basin bisected by the Yukon River. The basin is underlain by permafrost and includes a complex network of lakes, streams, and rivers. The area is characterized by mixed forests dominated by spruce, birch, and aspen.

Misty Fiords National Monument (Ketchikan)

2.3 million acres of undeveloped wild land on the mainland and adjoining islands of southern Southeast Alaska. Almost all designated Wilderness, encompassing 3000 foot granite cliffs, fiords, spectacular waterfalls, grizzly bears, moose, orcas, bald eagles, salmon, lava flows, and country about as wild, primitive, and unexplored as any in the U.S.

Western Arctic National Parklands (Kotzebue)

Western Arctic National Parklands is a management unit which includes Noatak National Perserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument and Kobuk Valley National Park near Kotzebue, AK and Bering Land Bridge National Preserve located on the Seward Peninsula near Nome, AK.

Sitka National Historical Park (Sitka)

Alaska's oldest federally designated park was established in 1910 to commemorate the 1804 Battle of Sitka. All that remains of this last major conflict between Europeans and Alaska Natives is the site of the Tlingit Fort and battlefield, located within this scenic 113 acre park in a temperate rain forest. Southeast Alaska totem poles and a temperate rain forest setting combine to provide spectacular scenery along the park's coastal trail.

Wrangell - St Elias National Park & Preserve (Copper Center)

The Chugach, Wrangell, and St. Elias mountain ranges converge here in what is often referred to as the "mountain kingdom of North America." The largest unit of the National Park System and a day's drive east of Anchorage, this spectacular park includes the continent's largest assemblage of glaciers and the greatest collection of peaks above 16, 000 feet. Mount St. Elias, at 18, 008 feet, is the second highest peak in the United States.

Yukon - Charley Rivers National Preserve (Eagle)

Located along the Canadian border in central Alaska, the preserve protects 115 miles of the 1, 800-mile Yukon River and the entire Charley River basin. Numerous rustic cabins and historic sites are reminders of the importance of the Yukon River during the 1898 gold rush. Paleontological and archeological sites here add much to our knowledge of the environment thousands of years ago.

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge (Cold Bay)

The Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is the smallest ( 315, 000 acres) and one of the most ecologically unique of Alaska's refuges. Most of the refuge (300, 000 acres), was designated as Wilderness in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. This diverse wilderness protects a wide variety of fish and wildlife species and their habitats.

Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (Kotzebue)

The Bering Land Bridge National Preserve is one of the most remote national park areas, located on the Seward Peninsula in northwest Alaska. The Preserve is a remnant of the land bridge that connected Asia with North America more than 13, 000 years ago. The majority of this land bridge, once thousands of miles wide, now lies beneath the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas.

Cape Krusenstern National Monument (Kotzebue)

Cape Krusenstern National Monument is a treeless coastal plain dotted with sizable lagoons and backed by gently rolling limestone hills. Cape Krusenstern's bluffs and its series of 114 beach ridges record the changing shorelines of the Chukchi Sea over thousands of years. Because the ridges accumulated over time, the earliest ridges lie inland, and the most recently formed ridges near the shore.

Denali National Park & Preserve (Denali Park)

It's more than a mountain. Denali National Park & Preserve features North America's highest mountain, 20, 320-foot tall Mount McKinley. The Alaska Range also includes countless other spectacular mountains and many large glaciers. Denali's more than 6 million acres also encompass a complete sub-arctic eco-system with large mammals such as grizzly bears, wolves, Dall sheep, and moose. The park was established as Mt. McKinley National Park on Feb. 26, 1917.

Gates Of The Arctic National Park & Preserve (Bettles)

By establishing Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve (GAAR) in Alaska's Brooks Range, Congress has reserved a vast and essentially untouched area of superlative natural beauty and exceptional scientific value - a maze of glaciated valleys and gaunt, rugged mountains covered with boreal forest and arctic tundra vegetation, cut by wild rivers, and inhabited by far-ranging populations of caribou, Dall sheep, wolves, and bears (barren-ground grizzlies and black bears).

Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve (Gustavus)

The marine wilderness of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve provides opportunities for adventure, a living laboratory for observing the ebb and flow of glaciers, and a chance to study life as it returns in the wake of retreating ice. Amidst majestic scenery, Glacier Bay offers us now, and for all time, a connection to a powerful and wild landscape.

Katmai National Park & Preserve (King Salmon)

Katmai is famous for volcanoes, brown bears, fish, and rugged wilderness and is also the site of the Brooks River National Historic Landmark with North America's highest concentration of prehistoric human dwellings (about 900). Katmai National Monument was created to preserve the famed Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a spectacular forty square mile, 100 to 700 foot deep, pyroclastic ash flow deposited by Novarupta Volcano.

Kenai Fjords National Park (Seward)

Sweeping from rocky coastline to glacier-crowned peaks, Kenai Fjords National Park encompasses 607, 805 acres of unspoiled wilderness on the southeast coast of Alaska?s Kenai Peninsula. The park is capped by the Harding Icefield, a relic from past ice-ages and the largest icefield entirely within U.S. borders. Visitors witness a landscape continuously shaped by glaciers, earthquakes, and storms.

Lake Clark National Park & Preserve (Port Alsworth)

Lake Clark National Park and Preserve is a composite of ecosystems representative of many regions of Alaska. The spectacular scenery stretches from the shores of Cook Inlet, across the Chigmit Mountains, to the tundra covered hills of the western interior. The Chigmits, where the Alaska and Aleutian Ranges meet, are an awesome, jagged array of mountains and glaciers which include two active volcanoes, Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Iliamna.

Suitland Parkway

Suitland Parkway is a limited access scenic roadway that was opened during World War II on December 9, 1944, to serve as a rapid transit road between Camp Springs (later renamed Andrews Field) in Prince George's County, Maryland, to Bolling Field Air Force Base, the Pentagon and downtown Washington, D.C. Today the Parkway is a dual lane roadway used by visitors and commuters approaching the nation's capital from the east.

White Mountains National Recreation Area (Fairbanks)

This 1-million-acre area is used primarily from February to April, when dog-mushers, snowmobilers, and skiers come to take advantage of the winter solitude and northern lights. BLM maintains 9 winter cabins, which are connected by a network of more than 300 miles of groomed winter trails. Much of the area is too wet to hike through in the summer, but Beaver Creek National Wild River and several short trails offer opportunities for adventure.

Campbell Tract Recreation Management Area (Anchorage)

The Campbell Tract is a 730-acre natural area used mostly by urban recreationists seeking a piece of Alaska wilderness in the heart of the Anchorage. The tract is a BLM administrative site with a restricted-use airstrip surrounded by Alaskan boreal forest containing twelve miles of non-motorized multi-use trails. The tract is bordered on three sides by city parklands creating an unbroken connection to the Chugach Mountains to the east.

NARA's Pacific Alaska Region -Anchorage (Anchorage)

NARA's Pacific Alaska Region -Anchorage

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