Katmai National Park and Preserve
Located in southern Alaska, Katmai National Park, and Preserve is a natural park and a historically preserved site in the United States. It is also known as the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, as it is home to grizzly bears. This National Park and Preserve land is almost the same size as Gales! It measures around 16 564,09 km². Most of the areas of this park are dedicated to nature and wildlife, where hunting is strictly prohibited. ‘Katmai’ comes from the stratovolcano located in Mount Katmai.
Katmai is located on the Alaska Peninsula, right in front of Kodiak Island, with headquarters near King Salmon, almost 300 miles southwest of Anchorage. The National Park area was first designated in 1918 as a national monument to protect the area that the great 1912 volcanic eruption of Novarupta created, which formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Fumaroles with a 100 km2 pyroclastic flow. Katmai National Park and Preserve have 18 volcanoes, seven of which have been active since the 1900s.
After its designation, Katmai was little developed and visited. It was initially designated because of its volcanic activity. Still, Katmai and its surroundings are now prized for their abundance of grizzly bears, sockeye salmon, and much more Alaskan and marine wildlife. After a series of expansions, Katmai National Park and Preserve was established in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
Katmai offers many recreational areas for camping, hiking, fishing, skiing, boating, kayaking, and interpretative programs. Katmai is home to the world’s most significant grizzly bear population, with over 2200 bears. These bears congregate mostly at Brooks Falls when salmon are spawning, so many photographers attend to the visitor’s platform to capture unique moments. Most of Katmai’s visitors go to Brooks Camp, one of the few developed areas in the park for wildlife watching. But, there are (a few) visitors who venture beyond the platform to capture bears and are along to Brooks Camp.
Park rangers are extremely careful that bears cant obtain human food or confront them. So as a positive result, Katmai Park’s bears show no fear or interest in humans; they let people come up to photograph them much closer than anywhere else.