Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve
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Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve lies entirely north of the Arctic Circle. It includes the scenic headland of the Brooks Range, the northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains. Combined, the park and preserve are four times the size of Yellowstone National Park. The area's austere beauty and grandeur defy description. This is the ultimate wilderness that captured the heart and imagination of Arctic explorer Robert Marshall In the 1930s.
Barren-ground caribou and grizzly bears range the area's spacious and fragile tundra, garnering a living based in the thin veneer of arctic soils. The park straddles the crest of the Brooks Range, its southern flank sampling the boreal forest of Alaska's interior and its north slope at the edge of a polar desert precipitation comparable to the Earth's driest regions. Two distinct cultures are represented here: the Athabascan peoples of the spruce-taiga forests, and the Nanamuit Eskimos, who hunt caribou in the high valleys. Both cultures continue to follow traditional subsistence patterns of life in the park and preserve.
Access
Scheduled flights from Fairbanks serve Bettles/Evansville and Anaktuvuk Pass.
Approximate Size
8.2 million acres.
