50 Fun Facts About Katmai National Park

Katmai's headquarters town lies about 290 miles southwest of which Alaskan city?

The park sits on the Alaska Peninsula across the water from Kodiak Island; there is no road link to the rest of the state.

Katmai holds the world's largest protected population of which animal, estimated at about 2,200?

They gather at the falls when the salmon run; because rangers never let them get human food, the bears are famously indifferent to people.

Which fish draws the bears to Katmai's rivers each summer?

They enter the Naknek drainage from Bristol Bay in June and July and spawn from August to October, feeding bears, eagles and people alike.

At which waterfall, a mile and a half from Naknek Lake, do bears famously catch leaping salmon?

The falls are only about six feet high; up to 25 bears have been seen there at once in July, the peak month.

How high is the waterfall the salmon must leap on the Brooks River?

The Bureau of Fisheries even blasted out part of the falls in 1921 to help the fish; the best viewing months are July and September.

What is the annual online contest in which the public votes for Katmai's fattest bruin?

Run with Explore.org each autumn, it draws over a million votes and was called the state's most-watched popularity contest by the Associated Press.

The park's fat-bruin contest began in 2014 as what?

Former ranger Mike Fitz started it as Fat Bear Tuesday; it celebrates hyperphagia, the feeding frenzy before hibernation.

Which patient, conflict-avoiding bear, number 480, won the park's fat-bruin vote four times?

First identified at the falls in 2001, he was called a zen master for scooping fish from the shore; he had a floppy ear and only two canines left, and did not return in 2024.

A Katmai bear can eat as much as how much salmon in a single day during hyperphagia?

That can mean 30 fish a day and weight gains of four pounds daily; big males can top 1,200 pounds by November.

Roughly what fraction of its body weight can a bear lose during hibernation?

They neither eat nor drink until spring, which is why the autumn fat matters so much, especially for pregnant females.

The 1912 eruption in what is now Katmai was the largest of the 20th century; which vent produced it?

For decades Mount Katmai got the credit; only in 1954 was the small new vent shown to be the real source.

The 1912 eruption released how many times the magma of Mount St. Helens in 1980?

Rated VEI 6, the 60-hour eruption threw out 3.1 to 3.6 cubic miles of ash; only Pinatubo and Santa María came close last century.

What happened to Mount Katmai during the 1912 eruption, even though the magma came out six miles away?

Magma drained from beneath it, leaving a caldera 2,000 feet deep; a glacier has since formed inside, one of the few born in historic times.

The ash-filled valley left by the 1912 eruption became known as the Valley of what?

Fumaroles steamed from the cooling deposits for decades; streams have since cut canyons 100 feet deep but only 5 to 10 feet wide.

How thick was the pyroclastic flow that filled the valley near the 1912 vent?

The deposit covers about 40 square miles and is 100 to 700 feet deep across the valley.

The noise of the June 6, 1912 eruption was heard as far off as which city, 750 miles distant?

Ash fell six to twelve inches deep on Kodiak, reached Puget Sound, and hazed skies worldwide, cooling the northern hemisphere that year.

Which botanist led the National Geographic expeditions that named the steaming ash valley?

He had come to study how plants recolonised the ash; a 7,602-foot volcano in the park is now named for him.

Which president signed the proclamation creating Katmai National Monument in September 1918?

Horace Albright had advised that a park bill would never pass, so the Antiquities Act was used; the monument was already half the size of Yellowstone.

Herbert Hoover's 1931 expansion more than doubled the monument and, crucially, added what?

It made Katmai the largest single Park Service unit while steering clear of coastal lands thought to hold oil.

Under which 1980 law did Katmai gain its present park-and-preserve status?

Unusually for an ANILCA park, subsistence hunting was allowed only in the preserve, not the park; Jimmy Carter had added 1.37 million acres by proclamation in 1978.

How big are the park and preserve combined?

That is somewhere between Connecticut and New Jersey in size, and most of it is designated wilderness.

How many volcanoes does the park contain, seven of them active since 1900?

Six are currently classed as active, and two of them steam visibly from the headquarters town.

What is the tallest point in the park, at 7,605 feet?

Mount Katmai itself is only 6,716 feet after its summit collapsed in 1912.

Which volcanic complex in the park erupted from 1953 to 1974, adding a new southwestern peak?

About 0.7 cubic kilometres of material erupted from what had been a large fumarole pit; Fourpeaked had phreatic blasts in 2006.

Where is the park's headquarters, about five miles down the Naknek River from the entrance?

The local highway links Naknek Lake to the town and to Naknek but not to the state road system.

How do visitors reach the park's interior from the entrance?

Nearly everyone flies to the headquarters town and then on to the camp; a road runs from the camp to Three Forks overlook above the valley.

What is the name of the developed area where the vast majority of Katmai visitors go?

Few venture beyond its bear-viewing platforms; the site is also an archaeological district 4,500 years old and a National Historic Landmark since 1993.

Which body of water separates the park from Kodiak Island?

The park's deeply indented coast runs some 497 miles from Kamishak Bay south to Cape Kubugakli.

Which state bear sanctuary, closed to hunting, adjoins the park at Kamishak Bay?

The state set it aside in 1967 to protect the bears' fishing grounds; there have been proposals to fold it into Katmai.

Which bear enthusiast and his girlfriend were killed and partly eaten by a bear at Kaflia Bay, Katmai, in 2003?

He had spent many summers among the bears; the 2005 documentary Grizzly Man used his own footage.

Which director made Grizzly Man, the 2005 documentary about a bear enthusiast's life and death in Katmai?

He speculated in the film about whether Treadwell had filmed the very bear that killed him.

Which 1989 disaster sent oil onto Katmai's coast, reaching Cape Douglas on April 26?

The tanker grounded in Prince William Sound on March 24; skimmers were working the strait by early May.

How many mammal species does the park support?

They range from wolverine and lynx to beluga, killer and gray whales offshore, with 137 bird species besides.

Which Jesuit 'Glacier Priest' filmed Katmai's steaming ash valley and lectured about it until the 1950s?

He was among the first tourists in 1928, when a few dozen visitors a year found their way to the unstaffed monument.

In which year did the park finally get a full-time, on-site superintendent?

The first ranger, in 1937, spent most of June getting there and one day in the monument before heading back to Mount McKinley.

Which famous photograph of a Katmai bear catching a salmon in mid-air was taken by Thomas Mangelsen?

Between 43 and 70 individual bears have been documented at the falls in July and the lower river in September.

Which fault divides the peninsula's foundation rocks in the park?

Jurassic and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks lie east of it, metamorphic and igneous rocks west, with the granite Aleutian Range batholith pushed up through both.

Which wild river, designated under federal law, originates at Kukaklek Lake in the preserve?

The Naknek River, which empties into Bristol Bay, also starts inside the park.

What may hunters do in the 418,548-acre preserve that is banned in the national park?

Bears are the most commonly hunted species there, which has raised concerns about small preserve populations.

Where do Katmai bears live densely year-round thanks to clams and coastal sedge as well as salmon?

Kukak, Kuliak and Kaflia bays and Geographic Harbor are other coastal hotspots.

The 1912 eruption ended with what plugging the vent?

The dome is about 295 feet high and 1,180 feet across, sitting inside a 1.2-mile-wide funnel-shaped crater.

Which traders replaced the Russians in the park area in the late 19th century?

Katmai Village on the south coast, the only place Europeans had lived through the mid-19th century, was abandoned in the early 1900s.

Which National Park Service director commissioned the 1960s report Operation Great Land, which urged expanding Katmai?

Lyndon Johnson signed a 94,547-acre westward expansion in 1968, to Alaskan anger.

What is the park's climate classified as, with cool summers and year-round drizzle?

Summer highs average about 63 °F, coastal rainfall reaches 60 inches, and permafrost exists only at higher elevations.

Katmai's area falls between those of which two US states?

The park and preserve cover 4,093,077 acres, most of it designated wilderness.

How many volcanic mountains form the Aleutian Range chain across the park's coastal southeast?

The active ones include Mount Katmai, Novarupta, Trident, Mageik, Martin and Fourpeaked.

In which year was the 4,500-year-old Brooks Camp archaeological site made a National Historic Landmark?

It had joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1977; the Old Savonoski village was abandoned after the 1912 eruption.

How much rain can fall annually near Katmai's coast, where precipitation is heaviest?

Summer highs average about 63 °F and it is reliably drizzly, drier only in the fall.

Russian fur traders met the Aglegmuit people on the shores of which body of water?

On the Shelikof Strait side they encountered the Koniag; Katmai Village was the only place Europeans lived inside the park.

How wide is the largest of Mount Griggs's three concentric craters?

The flat-topped 7,602-foot stratovolcano sits off the park's otherwise straight line of volcanoes and has a distinct geochemistry.