Katmai National Park Trivia
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38 free Katmai National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Katmai National Park trivia quiz covers the four-million-acre park and preserve on the Alaska Peninsula that most people know from the bear cams: brown bears snatching sockeye salmon at Brooks Falls, and the annual Fat Bear Week vote. Questions cover the bears and salmon, Otis and the other webcam stars, the coast at Hallo Bay, the wolves, moose and lynx that share the park, and the practicalities of a park with no road connection to the outside world. The other half of Katmai's story is fire: the June 1912 eruption of Novarupta, the largest of the 20th century, which collapsed Mount Katmai's summit and buried a valley in ash so hot it steamed for decades. Questions follow Robert Griggs and the National Geographic expeditions that named the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, Woodrow Wilson's 1918 monument, the Hoover expansion that took in Brooks Falls, ANILCA in 1980, the Exxon Valdez oil, and the death of Timothy Treadwell. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question, so it works for a bear-cam watch party or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our US National Parks and Volcanoes quizzes next.
30 of 38 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Katmai's headquarters town lies about 290 miles southwest of which Alaskan city?
Anchorage
The park's headquarters town sits about 290 air miles southwest of Anchorage and has no road link to Alaska's main highway system.
Q 02Russian fur traders in the Katmai area mainly sought the pelts of which animal?
Sea otters
Sea otters were the backbone of Russia's Alaska fur trade, and as they grew scarce around Katmai, the trade there dried up.
Q 03What colour do the bodies of Katmai's sockeye salmon turn as they return upriver to spawn?
Bright red
Sockeye bodies turn bright red and their heads green as they near their spawning grounds, which is why Alaskans call them red salmon.
Q 04About how tall is the famous waterfall where Katmai's bears catch leaping salmon?
About 6 feet
The falls drop only about 6 feet, just enough to make sockeye leap on their way to spawning grounds upstream while bears wait on the lip.
Q 05Fat Bear Week voters watch Katmai's bears on live webcams run in partnership with which organisation?
Explore.org
Explore.org runs the cams with the park, and in July as many as 25 bears have been seen fishing the falls at once.
Q 06Fat Bear Week began in 2014 as a one-day Facebook vote under what name?
Fat Bear Tuesday
Former ranger Mike Fitz launched Fat Bear Tuesday in 2014 with before-and-after bear photos; in 2015 it moved online and grew into a week.
Q 07Which patient, conflict-avoiding bear, number 480, won Katmai's fat-bruin vote four times by 2025?
Otis
Otis, bear 480, won in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2021 by waiting patiently for fish to come to him rather than chasing them; he was first identified in 2001.
Q 08Which vent produced the 20th century's largest eruption, in 1912, in what is now Katmai?
Novarupta
Novarupta erupted for about 60 hours in June 1912 from a vent about six miles west of Mount Katmai.
Q 09The 1912 eruption released how many times the magma of Mount St. Helens in 1980?
30
The 60-hour eruption expelled about 13 cubic kilometres of magma, 30 times as much as Mount St. Helens did in 1980.
Q 10What happened to Mount Katmai during the 1912 eruption?
Its summit collapsed into a caldera
Its summit collapsed into a caldera as magma withdrew from beneath it; a crater lake and small glaciers have since formed inside.
Q 11The ash-filled valley left by the 1912 eruption became known as the Valley of what?
Ten Thousand Smokes
The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes got its name in 1916 from the steam rising off its cooling ash; most of it had died away by the 1930s, and streams have since cut deep gorges.
Q 12Which botanist led the National Geographic expeditions that named the steaming ash valley?
Robert Griggs
Robert Griggs campaigned to protect the valley, and in 1956 the volcano Knife Peak was renamed Mount Griggs in his honour.
Q 13Which president signed the proclamation creating Katmai National Monument in September 1918?
Woodrow Wilson
Q 21Which body of water separates the park from Kodiak Island?
Shelikof Strait
Shelikof Strait separates Kodiak and Afognak islands from the mainland, and Katmai's deeply indented coast lines its western shore.
Q 22Which state bear sanctuary, closed to hunting, adjoins the park at Kamishak Bay?
McNeil River
McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, created in 1967 and enlarged in 1993, adjoins Katmai's northern boundary and can draw 60 or more bears to its falls at once.
Q 23Which bear enthusiast and his girlfriend were killed by a bear in Katmai in 2003?
Timothy Treadwell
Timothy Treadwell, who had spent 13 summers among Katmai's bears, had stayed past his usual season with Amie Huguenard when a bear killed them in October 2003.
Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Katmai National Monument on 24 September 1918, protecting about 1,080,000 acres of country devastated by the 1912 eruption.
Q 14Which president's 1931 proclamation more than doubled Katmai National Monument, making it the largest Park Service unit?
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover's April 1931 proclamation took the monument to 2,697,590 acres, citing the protection of brown bears, moose and other wild animals.
Q 15Under which 1980 law did Katmai gain its present park-and-preserve status?
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 2 December 1980 made Katmai a national park and preserve, after Jimmy Carter had added 1.37 million acres by proclamation in 1978.
Q 16Most of Katmai National Park is also designated as what under federal law?
Wilderness
Wilderness covers about 3.4 million of Katmai's acres, set aside by the 1980 act that made it a national park and preserve.
Q 17Katmai's chain of volcanoes forms part of which mountain range?
Aleutian Range
The Aleutian Range crosses the park's coastal southeast as a chain of about fifteen volcanic mountains, part of the larger Aleutian Arc.
Q 18Katmai's volcanoes form where which tectonic plate dives beneath the North American Plate?
Pacific Plate
The Pacific Plate sinks beneath the North American Plate at about 2.5 inches a year, the subduction behind Katmai's volcanoes.
Q 19Which town on the Naknek River is home to Katmai's headquarters?
King Salmon
King Salmon got an Army air base during World War II, and the Park Service later chose it for Katmai's headquarters for quick access to its airport.
Q 20How do most visitors arrive at Katmai's main bear-viewing camp?
By floatplane
By floatplane: most visitors land at a seaplane base beside the camp, since Katmai is reached almost only by plane or boat.
Q 24Which director made Grizzly Man, the 2005 documentary about a bear enthusiast's life and death in Katmai?
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog built the film from more than 100 hours of the enthusiast's own video and chose not to play the recorded audio of the fatal attack.
Q 25Which 1989 disaster sent oil onto Katmai's coast, reaching Cape Douglas on April 26?
The Exxon Valdez spill
The Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, spilling nearly 11 million gallons of crude that drifted as far as Katmai.
Q 26Katmai National Park and Preserve lies on which peninsula?
Alaska Peninsula
The Alaska Peninsula, across from Kodiak Island, also holds Aniakchak National Monument and several national wildlife refuges.
Q 27Which Jesuit 'Glacier Priest' visited Katmai's ash-filled valley?
Bernard Hubbard
Bernard Hubbard, a Santa Clara geology professor, led a 1930 expedition into Aniakchak's crater and returned in 1931 just after it erupted.
Q 28Which famous photograph of a Katmai bear snapping at a leaping salmon was taken by Thomas Mangelsen?
Catch of the Day
Thomas Mangelsen's 'Catch of the Day', shot in 1988, froze a sockeye an instant from a bear's open jaws and became one of the best-known wildlife photographs.
Q 29Why did Katmai National Park delay revealing its 2024 Fat Bear Week bracket?
A fatal fight caught on webcam
A fatal fight caught on webcam: bear 469 killed bear 402, so the organisers first discussed it with viewers on a livestream.
Q 30Which activity is permitted in Katmai's 418,548-acre preserve but banned in the national park?
Sport and subsistence hunting
Sport and subsistence hunting are allowed in the 418,548-acre preserve but not in the park; moose and brown bears are the species hunted most often.