50 Fun Facts About Lake Clark National Park

Lake Clark National Park and Preserve lies about how far southwest of Anchorage?

There are no roads in; visitors come by small aircraft, usually floatplanes, or by boat along the Cook Inlet coast.

Which two volcanoes stand within the park near Cook Inlet?

Mount Spurr sits just outside to the east; both park volcanoes are stratovolcanoes rising through a granite range.

Mount Redoubt has erupted how many times since it was first observed, most recently in 1989 and 2009?

The confirmed eruptions came in 1902, 1966, 1989 and 2009, with doubtful ones in 1881 and 1933; the 1989 ash reached 45,000 feet.

What happened to KLM Flight 867 when it flew through Redoubt's ash cloud in December 1989?

The 747 fell 13,000 feet before the pilots relit the engines and landed safely; four other planes were damaged, a wake-up call about volcanic ash hazards.

How high is Mount Redoubt?

Its 1.8-kilometre summit crater feeds the Drift Glacier through a gap in the rim; the 2009 eruption sent lahars down the Drift River toward an oil terminal.

What threatened the Drift River oil terminal during Redoubt's 2009 eruption?

Pyroclastic flows melted glacier ice and sent mudflows down the Drift River east of the park.

Which granite range links the Alaska Range to the Aleutian Range in Lake Clark National Park?

Glaciers carved cirques and U-shaped valleys into it, ending abruptly at the steep coast in deep bays.

What are the dimensions of Lake Clark itself?

It is dammed by a terminal moraine and drains toward Bristol Bay.

Lake Clark ranks where among Alaska's lakes by size?

The Tlikakila River feeds it from Summit Lake, and its outflow eventually reaches Bristol Bay.

The Kvichak River, the park's chief river, holds what world record?

Its fish account for 33 percent of the US sockeye catch and 16 percent of world production.

A wolf pack at Lake Clark is documented as the only pack in the world that is what?

Brown bears crowd the Kijik River and Silver Salmon Creek for the same reason.

Which bay on the park's coast is considered one of the top bear-viewing spots in Alaska?

Silver Salmon Creek is the other coastal hotspot, and quieter Tuxedni Bay has shown up to 20 brown bears digging clams at once.

Coastal salt marshes cover under 1 percent of the park; why do bears flock to them?

Hundreds of bears graze the coastal marshes each summer before the salmon arrive.

Why are brown bears seen more often than their smaller cousins in the park, even though both live there?

Black bears use every part of the park except the high country; browns concentrate on the coast.

Who built a cabin by hand at Twin Lakes in 1968 and lived there alone for about 31 years?

A former Navy carpenter and diesel mechanic from Iowa, he left in 1999 and bequeathed the cabin to the Park Service.

What is the title of the 2003 documentary compiled from Proenneke's own films of his life at Twin Lakes?

Produced after his death, it became a public-television staple.

What was the title of the 1973 book a friend compiled from Proenneke's journals?

Sam Keith, who knew him from the Kodiak naval station, edited the journals; its subtitle was An Alaskan Odyssey.

What happened to Proenneke's cabin after his death in 2003?

He willed it to the park; it was listed four years later and is one of the park's most popular attractions.

From which state did Proenneke originally hail?

Born in Primrose in 1916, he joined the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor and moved to Alaska in 1950 after a stint on an Oregon sheep ranch.

At about what age did Proenneke retire to Twin Lakes to build his cabin?

He arrived on May 21, 1968, having saved for retirement as a sought-after heavy-equipment technician.

What is the main settlement inside the park, home to the visitor center and several lodges?

Founded in 1950 by missionary bush pilot Babe Alsworth and his wife Mary, it sits on private land on Lake Clark and had 186 people in 2020.

Who founded the park's main settlement in 1950?

He had run the first air taxi to Lake Clark in 1942; his wife Mary was the town's first postmaster.

In what year did the first floatplane land on Lake Clark?

Regular air taxi service followed in 1942, and air remains the only practical way in for most visitors.

What 1,050-foot mountain route do pilots use between Anchorage and western Alaska?

The mountains are a serious barrier to the small planes that do most of the region's travelling.

Which Native Athabaskan people have long lived in and around the park?

Most residents of the five nearby villages, including Nondalton, Iliamna and Pedro Bay, are Dena'ina.

What is Kijik, the park's main archaeological site?

It had 91 people in the 1880 census; its residents moved to Old Nondalton to be nearer trading posts and canneries, and a 1966 dig exposed twelve log house foundations.

Which British captain surveyed the inlet on the park's eastern shore in 1778, leaving his name on it?

Russian traders followed in the decades after; American traders arrived by the 1890s to find a Native population ravaged by imported disease.

Which president proclaimed Lake Clark a national monument on December 1, 1978?

He used the Antiquities Act to protect Alaskan lands while the ANILCA bill stalled; Congress made it a park and preserve in 1980.

How big are the park and preserve together?

About 2.6 million acres are park and 1.4 million preserve; roughly two-thirds is designated wilderness.

What may visitors do in the preserve that is not allowed in the park?

Inside the park only local residents may hunt for subsistence; both kinds are allowed on the preserve lands to the west.

The park's vast protected backcountry was renamed in 2018 for which former Alaska governor?

The 2.6-million-acre wilderness contains three Wild and Scenic Rivers: the Chilikadrotna, Mulchatna and Tlikakila.

What large open-pit project proposed in 2007 near the park's western edge worries salmon advocates?

It would dig molybdenum, gold and copper from a pit two miles across, with tailings dams, roads and a deepwater port.

What has coloured the surface of Lake Clark orange in bad years?

Spruce bark beetles have also hit the white spruce of the boreal forest that covers the park's southwest.

By the late 2000s the park's caribou herd had fallen from about 200,000 to how many?

Caribou and ptarmigan roam the tundra of the park's north and west; Dall's sheep, moose and wolves are there too.

In 2021 archaeologists announced finding what 460-year-old artefact under two feet of water in the park?

The 54-inch strip of bow had Yup'ik or Alutiiq features despite lying in Athabaskan country; radiocarbon dating placed it between 1506 and 1660.

The Tlikakila crosses the park from Summit Lake to Lake Clark; under what name does the water leave the lake and the park?

The Kvichak, the park's chief river, carries Bristol Bay's famous sockeye runs.

How high is Iliamna, the park's second, quieter volcano?

Glaciers have carved away its southern and eastern flanks; it still has active fumaroles that occasionally puff visible plumes.

What is the typical winter low temperature in the park?

Summer averages 50 to 65 with highs near 68; marine air from the Pacific collides with dry continental air over the park, so snow can fall in any month.

Which prehistoric tradition, 10,000 to 7,500 years ago, is the earliest known human presence around Lake Clark?

Northern Archaic, Arctic Small Tool, Norton and Thule peoples followed in turn, the last lasting into historic times.

Roughly how many bears did a survey count grazing the park's coastal salt marshes?

Hundreds of bears graze the coastal marshes each summer; they share the coast with sea lions, belugas, harbor seals and porpoises offshore.

Which two settlements bracket the park's coastal section along Cook Inlet?

The coastal strip is one of the park's four physiographic regions along with the mountains, the glacial lake country and the tundra.

Where did Proenneke work for the Fish and Wildlife Service before retiring to Twin Lakes?

He had earlier been a heavy-equipment operator at the Kodiak naval air station and a salmon fisherman around Alaska.

How many roads lead into Lake Clark National Park?

Visitors arrive by boat along the Cook Inlet coast or by air taxi, usually a floatplane.

Which 1980 act of Congress made Lake Clark a national park and preserve?

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act also designated about two-thirds of the unit as wilderness.

Under the Köppen system, what climate type does the park have?

Its Dfc classification means cool summers, a coldest month below freezing and precipitation all year.

The collision of which two tectonic plates forced up the granite core of the Chigmit Mountains?

Coastal rocks in the park are sedimentary and rich in fossils, with volcanic rock intruding through them.

In which bay have up to 20 brown bears at a time been seen feeding on clams and sedges?

It lies north of Chinitna Bay and draws fewer visitors, so bears can be watched in peace.

Which three metals would the proposed Pebble Mine extract from its open pit?

The pit would be about 2 miles across, with tailings stored behind dams on the site.

How many Wild and Scenic Rivers lie within the park's Jay S. Hammond Wilderness?

They are the Chilikadrotna, the Mulchatna and the Tlikakila.

Which third volcano stands just outside the park's eastern boundary?

Redoubt and Iliamna are the two active volcanoes inside the park itself.