Alaska is home to eight national parks, one of them being the Kobuk Valley National Park. With 1,750,716 acres, the park is described to be larger than the state of Delaware. The park may be large but visitors are few in between. In 2018, less than 15,000 people visited the park.
The only reason why Kobuk Valley National Park doesn’t have a lot of visitors is because of its inaccessibility. No roads are leading to the park. However, it doesn’t mean that this park is less beautiful than its counterparts around America. The park holds the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes. It is also a common migration route for caribou.
History
People first settled at the valley around 12,500 years ago. Parts of Alaska’s cultural evolution are documented in the Onion Portage Archeological District, which recorded nine complexes in over 8,000 years.
The first documented inhabitants of this area are members of the Paleo-Arctic Tradition. However, they soon left the region, and it remained uninhabited for over 2,000 years. Different tribes from different eras, eventually settled leading to the current settlers, the Inupiat people.
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 created 15 preserved areas, which included the Kobuk Valley National Park. But before that, the area was declared a national monument in 1978.
Places to go
The park is large, offering a wide range of views and locations one can go to for various activities. Tourists have to take chartered air taxi for visiting the region. The flight itself is an experience to behold, giving people a bird’s eye view of the park. Here are some of the places people need to see while at the park:
Sand Dunes
There are three sets of dunes beside the Kobuk River: the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Little Kobuk Sand Dunes, and the Hunt River Dunes. Of course, one of the main reasons why the park was created was to protect the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, which has dunes as high as 100 feet. The dunes used to cover 200,000 acres of the area. Natural geological activities diminished the dunes, which are now just about 20,500 acres. The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes is considered the largest active Arctic dune in America.
Onion Portage Archeological District
This is a stratified site that covers major archaeological areas at the park. The district is in the National Register of Historic Places since 1972. In 1978, the district was declared a National Historic Landmark District. It documents nine cultures in the region, dating from 6500 BC to 1700 AD. It is a significant site, located on the northern banks of the Kobuk River, particularly among scholars who are studying Arctic cultures. It helps determine the cultural chronology of Alaska.
Things to do
Unlike most national parks, there are no concessionaires at Kobuk Valley National Park. So while people can boat, canoe and kayak at the Kobuk River during summer, there is no equipment for rent in the area. The same goes for fishing—people can do it but they have to bring their gear. People can also hike at the park but there are no trails. Only experienced hikers are advised to camp in the park.
Photography, though, is a perfect activity in the park because of so many great vistas: from the dunes to the river, the surrounding mountains and fauna, and caribou migration, too.
Winter provides opportunities to do some skiing, snow machining, and even dog sledding. The aurora borealis is also visible during winter nights, which makes the park a perfect place for stargazing during winter. But even without winter, the lack of artificial lighting at the park makes it a great place to observe the night sky.
Flora and fauna
Technically, Kobuk Valley National Park is between boreal forest and tundra. One of the most common wildlife in the park is the caribou, which locals still hunt for their sustenance. There are about 400,000 caribou of the Western Arctic herd, which traverses the park as part of their migration route. Watching this caribou activity is also one of the most exciting things for visitors in the park.
But other than caribou, other animals living in the park are bears, beavers, Dall sheep, lynxes, martens, minks, moose, muskrats, porcupines, red foxes, river otters, snowshoe hares, voles, wolverines and wolves, among others. The Kobuk River contains fish species like Arctic char, Arctic grayling, chinook, chum, lake trout, pink salmon and sockeye salmon.
As boreal forest and tundra go, the majority of the trees in the park are larches, pines, and spruces. The Kobuk locoweed is also endemic to the park.