50 Fun Facts About Gates of the Arctic National Park

The park lies entirely north of which line of latitude?

It protects the central Brooks Range of northern Alaska and is the northernmost national park in the United States, as well as the least visited.

How many recreation visitors did the park record in 2021?

Its remoteness and total lack of infrastructure make it the least visited national park in the country.

Roughly how long is the Brooks Range, which the park protects the centre of?

It stretches across northern Alaska into the Yukon and is thought to be about 126 million years old; its high point is Mount Isto at 8,976 feet.

Who named the 'Gates of the Arctic' in 1929, and what were the gates?

The forester and wilderness activist named the two peaks flanking the river as the portal to the Arctic.

What is the name of the two mountains that form the 'Gates'?

Boreal Mountain stands 6,375 feet and Frigid Crags 5,501 feet, facing each other across the North Fork of the Koyukuk.

Bob Marshall's bestselling 1933 book about the tiny Koyukuk settlement where he lived was called what?

He called Wiseman 'the happiest civilization of which I have knowledge', recorded thousands of hours of conversation, and shared the royalties with the villagers.

Which conservation organisation did Bob Marshall spearhead and largely bankroll from 1935?

He died of heart failure at 38 in 1939; 25 years later the society helped pass the Wilderness Act, and Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness bears his name.

Which president proclaimed Gates of the Arctic National Monument on 1 December 1978?

He used the Antiquities Act because the Alaska lands bill was stuck in Congress; Johnson had declined Stewart Udall's request to do the same in 1968.

Which 1980 law turned the monument into today's park and preserve?

ANILCA passed on 2 December 1980; the earlier 1971 Native Claims Settlement Act had forced the review of federal lands that led to it.

How large are the park and preserve combined?

That makes it the second-largest park unit in the country after Wrangell–St. Elias; about 85 percent is designated wilderness.

Together with the adjoining Noatak backcountry, the park's protected core forms what?

The Noatak basin next door is also the largest undisturbed river watershed in the country.

How many roads, trails, campgrounds and visitor centres are inside the park?

Visitors arrive by bush plane or hike in from the highway to the east; a few informal ATV tracks lead out of the one settlement, but that is all.

Which road passes within about five miles of the park's eastern boundary?

Built in 1974 as the haul road for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, it runs 414 mostly unpaved miles to Deadhorse; reaching the park from it still means fording a river.

Which Iñupiat settlement sits in the middle of the park, outside the wilderness designation?

Its 400-odd residents are the last Nunamiut community.

What does 'Nunamiut' mean?

Unlike coastal Iñupiat who hunted whales and seals, they lived inland on caribou; the last two nomadic bands came together in 1949 to found the settlement.

What does the name Anaktuvuk mean in Inupiaq?

The 1949 trek of Nunamiut families 100 miles to Tulugak Lake and then to the John River headwaters is remembered as 'the Long Walk'.

Roughly how many caribou migrate through the central Brooks Range twice a year?

The Central Arctic, Western Arctic, Teshekpuk and Porcupine herds head north in summer and south in winter; shrinking snowfields may reduce their numbers.

How many brown bears live in the park and preserve?

That works out to roughly one bear per 100 square miles; black bears, wolves, wolverines and muskoxen share the range.

The park is the northernmost range limit for which animal?

The white sheep cling to the crags; collared pikas, marmots and Arctic ground squirrels live lower down.

What temperature extremes can the park experience?

The plant hardiness zone at the settlement's ranger station is 2b, with an average annual extreme minimum of about −43 °F.

The boreal forest of black and white spruce gives way to tundra at roughly what latitude in the park?

That line coincides with the spine of the Brooks Range; north of it mosses, lichens and shrubby willows take over.

What is the largest lake in the park?

It lies on the south slope of the range, 14 miles long and a mile wide; many park lakes sit in glacier-scoured basins or behind moraines.

How many Wild and Scenic Rivers does the park contain?

The Alatna, John, Kobuk, North Fork Koyukuk, Tinayguk and part of the Noatak; the Kobuk stretch is the longest at 110 miles.

The Noatak River rises in the park's Schwatka Mountains and flows how far to the Chukchi Sea?

Its entire course lies in the far north and its whole basin is protected, making it the largest undisturbed watershed in the United States.

What is the tallest mountain in the park?

Its Iñupiaq name means 'big mountain'; some sources give it 8,510 feet, and it was first climbed on 9 August 1968.

What does 'Arrigetch', the name of the park's famous cluster of granite spires, mean in Iñupiaq?

The peaks were made a National Natural Landmark in 1968; the first successful climbing expedition reached them in 1964.

The range is named for Alfred Hulse Brooks. What was he?

The Board on Geographic Names chose the name in 1925.

The park straddles a continental divide separating the drainages of which two oceans?

Rivers on the south slope run to the Yukon and the Bering Sea; those on the north slope run to the Arctic Ocean.

For how long have nomadic peoples lived in the Brooks Range?

The Mesa site at Iteriak Creek shows occupation between 11,500 and 10,300 years ago; the Arctic small tool tradition appears about 4,500 years ago.

Which Northern Athabaskan people fought the Iñupiat in a great 19th-century battle and retreated south of the range?

They had lived in the area for the previous thousand years; the Gwich'in name for the Brooks Range is Gwazhał.

Where is the park's headquarters?

Field operations run from the Bettles Ranger Station and a station in the settlement; the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center in Coldfoot opens late May to early September.

Who is allowed to hunt inside the national park portion (as opposed to the preserve)?

Sport hunting is confined to the preserve; ten 'resident zone communities' such as Bettles, Wiseman and Ambler depend on park resources for food.

The Ambler Road, proposed in the 2010s across 26 miles of the preserve, would reach what?

The controversial route would open the Ambler mining district; the park's purpose statement stresses preserving its 'vast, wild, undeveloped character'.

The most recent glaciation of the Brooks Range, which ended only 1,200 to 1,500 years ago, is called what?

It began about 24,000 years ago; today's perennial snowfields shrank by 13 square kilometres between 1985 and 2017.

Which institution in the park's Nunamiut settlement tells the story of the Nunamiut and the Brooks Range?

It sits in the middle of the park though not legally on park land.

How big a park did the National Park Service survey team recommend in 1968?

The final park and preserve came out at more than twice that size.

Which large predatory whitefish, prized by anglers, spawns in the upper Kobuk River each autumn?

The Kobuk runs about 280 miles from the park's Endicott Mountains to the Bering Sea; grayling, char and chum salmon swim the park's rivers too.

How did Bob Marshall become wealthy enough to fund his Alaska expeditions and his conservation society?

Louis Marshall died in Zürich; Bob, a PhD plant physiologist, kept working anyway, running forestry for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and recreation for the Forest Service.

Which three towns are the only settlements along the 414-mile road that parallels the pipeline?

Coldfoot has about 34 people and Wiseman about 12; the road parallels the pipeline and starred in Ice Road Truckers.

The Bateman Site in the park documents which late phase of the Arctic small tool tradition?

It dates from between 2,500 and 950 years ago; earlier sites yielded projectile points, stone knives and net sinkers.

In 2021 the least-visited US national park had 7,362 visitors. Which park drew 600 times more?

With no roads or trails, visitors have to fly in by bush plane or hike in from the highway, which keeps the count tiny.

Gates of the Arctic is the second-largest US national park. Which Alaskan park is the largest?

The park and preserve together cover about 8.47 million acres; roughly 85% of that has extra protection as designated wilderness.

Which protected area's western edge lies about 10 miles east of the park's boundary?

Kanuti refuge sits near the park's southeast corner, while Noatak National Preserve and the National Petroleum Reserve adjoin it to the west and northwest.

Which Interior Secretary urged President Johnson in 1968 to proclaim a Brooks Range monument?

Johnson declined to use the Antiquities Act; a decade later Jimmy Carter did, proclaiming the national monument in December 1978.

Park Service operations are run from a ranger station in which tiny town south of the park?

The town counted just 23 residents at the 2020 census, making it the second-smallest incorporated city in Alaska.

What is the highest peak in the entire Brooks Range, at 8,976 feet?

The range is believed to be about 126 million years old and is counted as part of the Rockies in the US but not in Canada.

The Iñupiat city in the middle of the park had what population at the 2020 census?

That was up from 324 in 2010; the community formed in 1949 when the last two semi-nomadic Nunamiut bands came together.

Bob Marshall began his outdoor career in 1925 as a forester with which agency?

He later ran forestry for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and recreation management for the Forest Service under Franklin D. Roosevelt, dying at just 38.

The Mesa site at Iteriak Creek shows human occupation from roughly how long ago?

Later sites from around 6,000 years ago yielded projectile points, stone knives and net sinkers.

Which writer and researcher proposed in the 1940s that Alaskan lands be preserved?

Formal park proposals for the Brooks Range only emerged in the 1960s, and the monument was finally proclaimed in 1978.