Wrangell Saint Elias National Park

NATIONAL PARKS
Aniakchak Preserve
Bering Preserve
Denali Park
Glacier Bay Park
Katmai Park
Kenai Fjords
Kobuk Valley
Lake Clark
Wrangell-Saint Elias

Wrangell Saint Elias National Park

Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park is located in the southeastern part of Alaska, extending from the Gulf of Alaska, along the border of Canada’s Yukon Territory; first established as a national monument in the year 1978, then as a national park in the year 1980.  This is one of the biggest and largest contained areas for the United States National Park System and contains a wilderness area at the convergence of the Wrangell, Chugach, and Saint Elias mountain ranges.

The park contains the country’s largest collection of glaciers and some of its tallest peaks, including Mount Saint Elias, 18,008 feet high, the second highest mountain in the United States.  This area of Alaska and the park is abundant in wildlife and flowing rivers.

Wrangell - St. Elias contains nine million acres of wilderness in the true sense of the word. Yet, it is important to realize that humans are a significant part of this ecosystem. For millenia, the Ahtna, Eyak, Upper Tanana, and Tlingit people have and continue to use the natural resources here through traditional hunting, fishing and gathering. Miners penetrated the Wrangells near the turn of the century when the lure of gold became greater than the hazards of the Alaska Bush. Testimony to their presence can be found at historic places such as Kennecott, and the current operations at Gold Hill, near Chisana. Settlers and pioneers arrived on the coattails of the gold rush and remnant structures from that era can be found throughout much of the Park and Preserve.

St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the largest national park in the United States. When coupled with our Canadian neighbors, Kluane National Park and Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, and with Glacier Bay National Park to the south, this is one of the largest protected areas in the world. This combined area has been recognized as a World Heritage Site. Here you can see and experience natural systems at work: glaciers the size of whole states grind toward pristine coasts; young rivers thick with glacial milk braid new channels; caribou herds migrate to ancient calving grounds and fend against their natural predators; and volcanoes sputter and steam - a reminder that nature hasn't yet finished changing this land.

The laws establishing Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve in 1980 recognized all of these activities, natural and human-caused, and provided for their continuation and preservation. Consequently, this park/preserve has a complex arrangement of land ownerships and continuing uses such as subsistence, trapping, sport hunting, mining, aircraft use, and timber harvesting intermingled with the thrum of wild rivers, the drama of wolves and their prey, and nesting eagles.


It is a land of remote valleys, wild rivers, and a fabulous wildlife population that includes the world's finest Dall sheep, grizzly bears, black bears, caribou, moose, bison, mountain goats, wolves, wolverines, beavers, coyotes, foxes, and marmots. In the north the glaciated peaks drop to tundra and boreal forested uplands. In the south massive glaciers spread from the mountains almost to the Gulf of Alaska. Several trails provide foot or horse access, but large braided rivers will often stop your progress. Mosquitoes are thick in the low country during the summer, and enough snow accumulates in the high country to make avalanches a year-round danger. The bold and the prepared, however, will discover Wilderness travel best.

• Alaska Cruises

Alaska National Parks

To experience the beauty of Alaska, we have included a few of the Alaska National Parks which you may wish to visit.

• Aniakchak
• Bering
• Denali
• Glacier Bay
• Katmai Park
• Kenai Fjords
• Kobuk Valley
• Lake Clark
• Wrangell