Kenai Fjords National Park is a United States national park that includes the Harding Icefield, its glaciers, and coastal fjords and islands. The park covers 669,984 acres (1,046.9 square miles; 2,711.3 square kilometers) on the Kenai Peninsula in south-central Alaska, located west of the town of Seward.
The park contains the Harding Icefield, one of the largest ice fields in the United States. It is named after the many fjords formed by glaciers moving from the icefield down the mountains. The icefield is the source of at least 38 glaciers, the largest being Bear Glacier. Fjords are valleys created by glaciers that are now underwater because the sea level has risen and the land has sunk. Exit Glacier is a popular spot at the end of the park's only road. The rest of the park can be reached by boat, airplane, or hiking.
Kenai Fjords National Monument was first created by President Jimmy Carter on December 1, 1978, using the Antiquities Act, until laws about public lands in Alaska were finalized. It became a national park after the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act passed in 1980. The park protects the icefield, a narrow strip of forested land between the mountains and the sea, and the deeply carved coastline. The park is home to many land and sea animals, including brown and black bears, moose, sea otters, harbor seals, and humpback and killer whales.
History
Kenai Fjords National Park was created in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). It is a small and easy-to-reach park compared to other Alaskan national parks, about 88% the size of Yosemite National Park. It is the fifth most visited park in Alaska, but the 11th largest of 13 Alaska parks. It is the closest national park to Anchorage. The park’s headquarters is in Seward. It is the only Alaska national park that did not originally allow subsistence use by Native Americans. However, native village corporations still have interests in lands within the park and have established subsistence rights on those lands.
When the park was created, there were few permanent residents. Archaeological surveys changed the earlier belief that the area was only used by people who lived there temporarily. Evidence now shows that the area was used for a long time. Coastal land sinking and rising water levels may have flooded many sites, as the shoreline had the most resources for early people. A 1993 Park Service survey found several village sites dating from 1200 AD to 1920. The survey also found evidence that an earthquake around 1170 AD lowered the shoreline by at least 1.8 meters (5.9 feet), possibly flooding older sites. A 2003 follow-up survey found one site used from 950 AD to 1800, another from 1785 to 1820, and a third from 1850 to 1890.
Several gold mines from the past have been found in the park. Mining activity focused on Nuka Bay. Some sites were active into the 1980s. Eleven mine sites have been documented, and two are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
Early studies about creating new Park Service areas in Alaska began in the 1930s and 1940s. One study, Alaska – Its Resources and Development, focused on tourism, though co-author Bob Marshall supported strict preservation. Another study in the 1940s had similar conclusions. In 1964, George B. Hartzog Jr., director of the National Park Service, started a study called Operation Great Land, promoting the development of existing Alaska parks. Hartzog also worked on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The Kenai Fjords area was not a top priority for park designation under ANCSA.
The first proposals for a national park in the Kenai Fjords came in the 1970s. In 1971, the Seward National Recreation Area was proposed for the area between the head of Resurrection Bay and Turnagain Arm, extending east to Whittier and west to Exit Glacier. This proposal allowed logging and mining, though it faced challenges with native land claims. Park Service documents imagined an 800,000-acre park protecting the coast and icefield, but this conflicted with other plans. Another proposal placed the Aialik Peninsula under the US Fish and Wildlife Service. On March 15, 1972, four areas of the Kenai Peninsula were set aside under ANCSA for federal protection. The same day, the National Park Service formed an Alaska Task Force to study park lands. The Kenai Fjords region became Study Area 11. Negotiations led the Department of the Interior to make the Park Service the lead agency for the area. In 1973, the Nixon administration proposed the Harding Icefield–Kenai Fjords National Monument as part of ANILCA. The proposed monument covered 300,000 acres in three areas: the icefield and two island groups.
Legislation stalled in Congress during the Watergate scandal and was not pursued again until the Carter administration. Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus proposed a 410,000-acre Kenai Fjords National Park. Alaskan opposition to ANILCA led President Jimmy Carter to declare Kenai Fjords National Monument under the Antiquities Act on December 1, 1978, pending final passage of an Alaskan lands bill. No visitor facilities or full-time local management resulted from the monument’s declaration. A single ranger was assigned to Seward as a liaison.
On December 2, 1980, the ANILCA bill was signed into law by Jimmy Carter, converting Kenai Fjords to a national park. Early improvements focused on access to Exit Glacier. In 1982, a general management plan was finalized, designating Exit Glacier as "front-country," the fjords as "back-country," and the icefield as wilderness. The park was initially managed by a small group of rangers and technicians who worked closely with local communities.
Under ANILCA, the park included 119,000 acres of "native selected lands," taken from federal ownership and given to Alaskan native corporations. Most of these lands were on the coastline. In the 1990s, the Park Service repurchased 30,295 acres, keeping subsistence rights on about 9,000 acres. This changed the park’s original plan, which did not include subsistence claims. A lodge was built by the Port Graham community on Aialik Bay.
Seward is a starting point and destination for large cruise ships from companies like Celebrity Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, and Royal Caribbean International. Passenger traffic through Seward was projected at 68,000 in 2013. Cruise tours from Seward access the park via Resurrection Bay. Companies offer tours, often guided by National Park Rangers. Tours show land and marine wildlife, including Steller sea lions, puffins, Dall’s porpoises, black bears, snowshoe hares, mountain goats, and humpback and orca whales. Natural sights like fjords and tidewater glaciers are also highlighted. Seward is a destination for cruise ships. Bus tours from Seward visit Exit Glacier, and boat tours explore other park areas.
The park maintains public-use cabins and shelters in coastal areas and near the Harding Icefield. Some of these are on native corporation lands, with a portion of the use fee going to the native community.
The park has a cooperative relationship with the Alaska SeaLife Center, sharing interpretive services.
Geography
The park is located on the southeastern side of the Kenai Peninsula, about 130 miles (210 km) south of Anchorage. The nearest large town is Seward, which is directly east of the park on Resurrection Bay. The park includes the region’s deeply indented, glacier-shaped coastline and its interior icefields. Major fjords in the area include Aialik Bay, Harris Bay, McCarty Fjord, and Nuka Bay. Much of the park’s interior is covered by the Harding Icefield. The highest point in the park is an unnamed mountain peak that reaches 6,450 feet (1,970 m) in the Kenai Mountains. The park is bordered by Kenai National Wildlife Refuge to the west and Kachemak Bay State Park to the south.
The park can be reached from Seward, which is 130 miles (210 km) south of Anchorage at the southern end of the Seward Highway. It is one of only three national parks in Alaska that can be accessed by road, through the Exit Glacier Nature Center. A network of trails near the Nature Center leads to the glacier and includes the 7.4-mile (11.9 km) Harding Icefield Trail.
The park’s landscape was shaped by the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, with the Pacific Plate moving under the North American Plate. This movement has lowered the height of the Kenai Mountains, gradually pulling glacial features into the sea, which is rising at the same time. The floors of the fjords can be as deep as 600 to 1,000 feet (180 to 300 m) below the current sea level. The movement of the North Pacific Plate has brought different types of rock to the shoreline, mixing them with local igneous rock. Common rock types in the area include shale, graywacke, greenstone, tuff, and chert.
Kenai Fjords is heavily covered by glaciers, with 51% of the park’s area under ice. The Harding Icefield receives 60 feet (18 m) of snowfall each year. More than 30 glaciers begin in the icefield, which formed about 23,000 years ago. Icefield coverage has decreased, with a 3% reduction in ice area over 16 years. The largest glacier in the park is Bear Glacier. The most easily reached glacier, and the only part of the park accessible by road, is Exit Glacier.
Climate
According to the Köppen climate classification system, Kenai Fjords National Park has a subarctic climate (Dfc), which means it has cool summers and rain or snow throughout the year. The United States Department of Agriculture states that the Plant Hardiness zone at Exit Glacier Visitor Center, located at an elevation of 463 feet (141 meters), is 4b. This zone has an average lowest temperature of -20.3 degrees Fahrenheit (-29.1 degrees Celsius).
Wildlife and ecology
Kenai Fjords National Park has a landscape shaped by glaciers. Over the twentieth century, the park’s glaciers moved back, revealing new land for plants and animals to live on. The park also has a large area of ocean and sea life.
Large land animals in the park include timber wolves, porcupines, Canadian lynx, brown bears, black bears, moose, and mountain goats. Smaller mammals include coyotes, beavers, and river otters. Marine mammals found here are sea otters, harbor seals, and Steller sea lions. Cetaceans, or whales, seen in the park’s waters include orcas, fin whales, humpback whales, minke whales, Dall’s porpoises, and Pacific white-sided dolphins.
Birds that nest in the park include bald eagles, the Peale’s subspecies of peregrine falcon, black-billed magpies, and Steller’s jays. Marine birds include tufted and horned puffins, common and thick-billed murres, and marbled murrelets.
The plant life in Kenai Fjords changes as glaciers move back. Newly exposed land is rocky and lacks soil at first. The first plants to grow in these areas are lichens and mosses, along with a few hardy plants like dwarf fireweed and yellow dryas. These early plants help break down rocks into soil, allowing other plants to grow. Sitka alder helps add nitrogen to the soil, supporting its own growth and improving the soil for other plants. Willows also appear at this stage. Later, black cottonwoods and Sitka spruce grow. Mature forests have Sitka spruce and mountain hemlocks, with an understory of devil’s club, Alaska blueberry, elderberry, baneberry, watermelon berry, and lady fern. A similar pattern of plant growth occurs on the park’s nunataks, which are exposed rock areas in the Harding Icefield. Forests in the park are mostly coniferous, with deciduous trees found only in areas recently freed from glaciers.
At higher elevations, harsh conditions prevent trees from growing above the tree line, which is between 750 and 1,000 feet (230 and 300 meters) above sea level. This area has shrubs like alders, devil’s club, elderberry, and lady fern, along with cow parsnip. Herbaceous plants grow in areas with better soil, including grasses, Nootka lupine, and fireweed. Higher alpine areas have dwarf shrubs less than 1 foot (30 cm) tall, growing very slowly. These plants include bog blueberry, partridgefoot, black crowberry, and Aleutian mountainheath. These plants are easily damaged by foot traffic.
Kenai Fjords has a unique estuary formed by the mixing of glacial freshwater and seawater. Glaciers erode rock, creating fine sediment called rock flour that colors the water near glacier edges. This sediment carries minerals that support phytoplankton, which feed larger animals.
The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, causing oil to spill onto the Kenai Fjords coastline. By early April, Park Service workers set up barriers to contain the oil near salmon streams and began checking for affected plants and animals. Oil reached the coast on April 10, affecting about 20 miles (32 km) of shoreline, or 4% of the total coastline. Headlands were most affected. The oil did not reach the fjords due to heavy spring water flows. Cleanup was difficult because the oil became a thick, sticky mixture that could not be skimmed and had to be dredged. Cleanup work stopped in September and resumed the next year, continuing in 1991. In 1991, Exxon paid about $870 million to the federal and Alaskan governments, with some funds used for restoring Kenai Fjords.
Archaeological sites in the park were also affected by the oil. A site near MacArthur Pass was discovered during cleanup. This site showed that native peoples had lived in parts of the park for a long time, contrary to earlier beliefs. Cleaning this site was challenging without disturbing the area.