Katmai National Park & Preserve is a United States National Park and Preserve in southern Alaska, notable for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for its Alaskan brown bears. The Park and Preserve covers 4,093,077 acres (6,395.43 sq. mi; 16,564.09 km2), roughly the size of Wales. Most of this is a designated wilderness area in the National Park where all hunting is banned, including over 3,922,000 acres (1,587,000 ha) of land. The Park is named after Mount Katmai, its centerpiece stratovolcano. The park is located on the Alaska Peninsula, across from Kodiak Island, with headquarters in nearby King Salmon, about 290 miles (470 km) southwest of Anchorage. The area was first designated a national monument in 1918 to protect the area around the major 1912 volcanic eruption of Novarupta, which formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a 40-square-mile (100 km2), 100-to-700-foot-deep (30 to 213 m) pyroclastic flow. The park includes as many as eighteen individual volcanoes, seven of which have been active since 1900. 

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Following its designation, the monument was left undeveloped and largely unvisited until the 1950s. Initially designated because of its violent volcanic history, the monument and surrounding lands became appreciated for their abundance of sockeye salmon, the highly concentrated brown bears that fed upon them, and a wide variety of other Alaskan wildlife and marine life. After a series of boundary expansions, the present National Park and Preserve were established in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980.

What Is The ANILCA?
On November 1980, the US Congress passed the Alaska Natural Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). It was called for major conservation all across the state of Alaska, moving 104 million acres into National Parks and Preserves, forest or fish and wildlife preserves. In addition, another 50 million acres were identified as wilderness. This document is known as "The most important environmental legislation in the history of the nation."

The Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act of 1980 provided the following:

      • 10 national Parks and Preserves
      • 2 National Monuments
      • 9 National Wildlife Refuges (Including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR)
      • 2 National Conservation Areas
      • 25 Wild and Scenic Rivers

ANILCA also expanded a number of other parks that were already in existence. When all was said and done, 104 million acres were put aside for conservation and protection- an area larger than the state of California.

Due to ANILCA, the Alaska Public Land Information Centers were born. The first opened was TOK in 1984, followed by Fairbanks in 1986, Anchorage in 1987, and finally Ketchikan in 1995. These centers, though managed by a single department (State, National Park Service, and National Forest Service, respectively), represent nine different State and Federal partners:

      • US Fish and Wildlife Service
      • Bureau of Land Management
      • National Park Service
      • US Geological Survey
      • US Forest Service
      • Alaska Department of Natural Resources (Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation)
      • Alaska Department of Fish and Game
      • Division of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development
      • Alaska Department of Transportation

Hunting in the Katmai Preserve was established and allowed with the Passage of the ANILCA. Most of the National Parks in Alaska, including Katmai National Park and Preserve, were established or expanded under the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act (ANILCA), which was adopted on December 2,1980.

Why is Hunting and Sport fishing allowed in the Preserve?
ANILCA's passage culminated more than twenty years of deliberation on federal land claims after statehood. The ANILCA mandates the specific purposes for each park established. Congress also provided the ANILCA would allow some key activities necessary to perpetuate the rural Alaskan lifestyle, such as subsistence uses, traditional uses, access, cabins, hunting and trapping. Providing for ANILCA's mandates and special uses makes management of Alaska's parks unique within the national park system.

What is the difference between a National Park and Preserve?
A National Park is an area of unusual scenic or historic interest owned by federal government and administered by the National Park service, US Department of the interior, to conserve the scenery, the flora and fauna, and any natural and historic objects within its boundaries for public enjoyment in perpetuity. A national park usually has more than one type of national significance. Hunting is not allowed in the Katmai National Park.

National Preserve is similar to a National Park, but allows other human activities to occur, such as sport hunting and Fishing. ANILCA directed that Preserves be administered "In the same manner as a national park.... except that the taking of fish and wildlife for sport purposes and subsistence uses, and trapping shall be allowed.”

People of Katmai
People have been coming to the place we call Katmai for thousands of years. Some found a good life in the heart of the park near the present-day Brooks River. Others made their lives on islands and shores of the rugged Shelikof Strait. The Alaska Peninsula's rich natural resources brought these people to this land of fierce storms, high seas, and steaming volcanoes. Streams filled with salmon, tundra plains covered with migrating caribou, and ocean shores teeming with life were the attraction. Some came to stay, building partially underground homes to protect them from the howling winds and frigid winter temperatures. Others came to take advantage of the rich summer salmon runs, building summer shelters but retreating from the mountains for the winter. Many traveled through the park, crossing from the east side of the peninsula to Bristol Bay. The trail over Katmai Pass was not only the link between peoples, but also a route that gave access to a greater variety of food sources and to a rich sharing of both stories and cultures. For Over 9,000 years people have called Katmai home. Concentrations of prehistoric sites in the Brooks River and Amalik Bay areas are recognized as national historic landmarks. Several other prehistoric and historic sites are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Savonoski Archeological District.  Click Here for Historic Sites Listed in the Katmai National Park & Preserve.

Today the abundant natural resources of Katmai National Preserve provide critical food supplies for descendants of those earliest inhabitants. Native Alaskans who live a subsistence lifestyle harvest fish and game here, intimately linking their lives with the life of this land called Katmai.

Hunter Orientation Requirements:
Hunter orientation is mandatory and required by the Katmai National Park Service and Majestic Mountain Outfitters. Clients are required to have completed Majestic Mountain Outfitters and the Katmai National Park & Preserve orientation with Jeff Chadd and/or a staff member prior to hunting within The Katmai Moraine Preserve. This orientation provided is for the client to fully understand what it means to hunt and camp in the Katmai Preserve and have a solid understanding of environmental sensitivity and techniques used for low impact hunting and camping. Orientation also covers proficiency with the proper use and the fundamental functions and locations of the Environmental and Emergency information binders. Electronic devices uses and proficiency to include: Satellite Phones, Ground to Air radios, GPS and Personnel Locating Beacon (PLB), and use of Electric Bear Fences. Orientation will also cover specific environmental techniques for proper human waste disposal, traveling on durable surfaces to ensure and minimize vegetation and tundra impact, waste handling and minimization, and camping safely in bear-country. Techniques are used to help ensure and prevent wildlife disturbance and wildlife natural feeding alterations.

The Katmai National Park and Preserve overview: It's history, sensitive nature and the (ANILCA). The Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act, which is primarily responsible in allowing sport hunting & fishing and recreational activities within the Katmai National Park and Preserve specific information, is available on this site and we ask clients to read about the history and nature of the Katmai.

Katmai National Park and Preserve (U.S. National Park Service) information links:

WWW.NPS.GOV/KATM 
WWW.TravelAlaska.com
Alaska's History and Culture