Tongass National Forest

Tongass National Forest, the largest in the United States, received its name from the Tongass Clan of the Tlingit Indians and dates back to 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt created the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve. In 1908 the forest was renamed and expanded and today the 16.9 million-acre Tongass National Forest stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the vast inland ice fields that border British Columbia and from the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island to Malaspina Glacier 500 miles to the north. More than 80 percent of Southeast Alaska is in Tongass and with its thousands of islands, fjords and bays the national forest has 11,000 miles of coastline, about half of that of North America. Tongass' vast coastal rain forest includes towering hemlock, spruce and red and yellow cedar. Beneath the massive conifers are young evergreens and shrubs such as devil's club, blueberry and huckleberry. Moss and ferns cover the ground, and lichens drape many trees.

Wildlife is abundant throughout Tongass. Sitka blacktail deer and its two main predators, wolf and brown bear, are found here. Black bear are common as well as mountain goats and some moose. Marine mammals found along the shores include Dall and harbor porpoises, hair seal and humpback, minke and killer whales and a growing population of sea otters. The waters teem with fish including halibut and all five species of Pacific salmon. More bald eagles live in this region than in any other place in the world.

Though home to the world's largest temperate rain forest, almost half of Tongass is covered by ice, water, wetlands and rock. It's most famous ice floe is the Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska's famous "Drive-in glacier" because it is only 13 miles from downtown Juneau along a paved road. A boat ride from Petersburg or Wrangell brings you near the face of LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier on the continent. Just 30 miles north of Yakutat is Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in the world and easily Alaska's most active. The 76-mile-long glacier has galloped across Russell Fjord several times, most recently in 2008. The rip tides and currents that flow in front of the 8-mile-wide glacier are so strong they cause Hubbard to calve almost continuously.

The Tongass contains 19 wilderness areas, including the 545-sq-mile Russell Fjord Wilderness, as well as Admiralty Island National Monument and Misty Fiords National Monument. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve and the general area around Haines and Skagway are not part of the national forest.

Kenai National Wildlife Refuge

Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is a long, broad swath of the western Kenai Peninsula, stretching across 2 million acres and encompassing the western slopes of the Kenai Mountains, forested lowlands along Cook Inlet, rivers, wetlands and chains of lakes. Bounded to the east by Chugach National Forest, to the southeast by Kenai Fjords National Park and to the south by Kachemak Bay State Park, the refuge was originally called the Kenai National Moose Range when President Franklin Roosevelt established the preserved in 1941 as a way to protect the moose from market hunting. In 1980, the moose range was renamed and expanded and today the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is the most accessible refuge in Alaska and the most visited, drawing more than half a million visitors each year.

The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge features a range of habitats; from treeless alpine and subalpine zones, home to mountain goats, Dall sheep, caribou and wolverine, to boreal forests in lower elevations where moose, wolves, black and brown bears and lynx reside. Breaking up the forest are numerous lakes and rivers, including the Kenai River whose king salmon fishery is world-renowned and reputed to support the largest genetic strain of the species anywhere. The world's record for a sport-caught king, weighting 97.2 pounds, was pulled from the Kenai in 1985.

The largest lake in the refuge is Tustumena Lake at nearly 74,000 acres. But among canoers the most popular ones are found in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Canoe Trail System, 120 miles of lakes and water trails in an undulating landscape. One of only two wilderness canoe systems established in the country, the Kenai system is divided into two areas. The more popular Swan Lake route covers 60 miles and 30 lakes and connects to the Moose River. The Swanson River route covers 80 miles and includes 40 lakes and 46 miles of the Swanson River that ends in Cook Inlet.

Denali National Park and Preserve

The towering granite spires and snowy summits of Denali National Park and Preserve straddles 160 miles of the Alaska Range and display so much elevation they are often lost in the clouds. Dominating this skyline is North America's highest peak; Mount McKinley standing tall at 20,320 feet and one of the most amazing sights in Alaska.

But it's not just the mountain that makes Denali National Park a special place. The park is also home to 37 species of mammals, ranging from lynx, marmots and Dall sheep, to foxes and snowshoe hares, while 130 different bird species have been spotted here, including the impressive golden eagle. Most visitors, however, want to see four animals in particular: moose, caribou, wolf and everybody's favorite: the brown, or grizzly, bear. Here at Denali, unlike most wilderness areas in the country, you don't have to be a backpacker to see this wildlife - people who never sleep in a tent have excellent once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to get a close look at these magnificent creatures roaming free in their natural habitat.

Not surprisingly then, visitors come here in droves; the park is a popular place, attracting 432,000 visitors annually. Over the years the National Park Service (NPS) has developed unique visitor-management strategies, including closing its only road to most vehicles. As a result Denali National Park is still the great wilderness it was 20 years ago. The entrance has changed, but the park itself hasn't, and a brown bear meandering on a tundra ridge still provides the same quiet thrill as it did when the park first opened in 1917.

Although generations of Athabascans had wandered through what is now the park, the first permanent settlement was established in 1905, when a gold miners' rush gave birth to the town of Kantishna. A year later, naturalist and noted hunter Charles Sheldon was stunned by the beauty of the land and horrified at the reckless abandon of the miners and big-game hunters. Sheldon returned in 1907 and traveled the area with guide Harry Karstens in an effort to set up boundaries for a proposed national park. Sheldon was successful as the area was established as Mount McKinley National Park in 1917 with Karstens serving as the park's first superintendent. As a result of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the park was enlarged to more than 6 million acres and renamed Denali National Park and Preserve. Denali now comprises an area slightly larger than the state of Massachusetts and is generally ranked as one of Alaska's top attractions.

Wrangell-St Elias National Park

Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest unit of the U.S. National Park System and, with its trademarks of high peaks and massive glaciers, one of the most spectacular. Designated as a national park in 1980, Wrangell-St Elias sprawls across 13.2 million acres in the southcentral region of Alaska. It abuts against Canada's Kluane National Park and together their 20 million acres represent one of the largest wilderness areas left in the world, the reason the two parks were recognized by the United Nations as a World Heritage site in 1979.

At Wrangell-St. Elias four great ranges, Chugach, Wrangell, St Elias and the eastern end of the Alaskan Range, converge in an area the size of six Yellowstone National Parks to form a crossroads of the mountains. The St Elias Range merges with the Wrangells in the heart of the park and then arcs eastward past the Canadian border where it forms the highest coastal range in the world. Within the park's borders are nine of the 16 highest peaks in the country, including the second highest, Mt St Elias (18,008 feet), Mt Bona (16,421 feet), Mt Blackburn (16,390 feet) and Mt Sanford (16,237 feet). From its glaciated roof of mountains and peaks, the park's terrain descends to the north as treeless tundra and then boreal-forested uplands. To the south the glaciers extend from the mountains almost to the tidewaters of the Gulf of Alaska.

Wildlife includes Dall sheep and mountain goats in the alpine region, caribou around the Wrangell Mountains to the north and moose in the bogs and brushy areas of the lowlands. Bison were released in Copper River Valley in 1950 and along the Chitina River in 1962 and remnants of those herds remain today. Black and brown bears roam throughout the park. Within 60 miles of Chitina, the McCarthy Road ends at a foot bridge across the Kennicott River. On the other side is one of the park's most noteworthy features; the now-deserted Kennecott Mine town site, a National Historic Landmark. After copper was discovered in the area in 1900, a group of wealthy investors formed the Kennecott Copper Corporation (named when a clerical worker misspelled Kennicott), built the Copper River and Northwest Railroad including its famous Million Dollar Bridge, established the company town of Kennicott and from 1911-38 made more than $100 million mining some of the richest copper veins the country has ever known. Since no gambling or drinking were allowed at the company town, McCarthy quickly sprang up nearby as a place where miners would find 'wine, women and song,' in its saloons, restaurants, hotels, and pool halls. A number of the buildings from that era still stand in both Kennicott and McCarthy, making the area the best remaining example of early 20th century copper mining.

Beyond exploring the old mining towns, other activities include backpacking and hiking, mountain biking, birding, camping, sport fishing and hunting, horseback riding, whitewater rafting and kayaking, mountaineering and ice climbing, wildlife viewing and flightseeing. In the winter visitors arrive to cross-country ski, snowmobile and snowshoe.