Part of The US National Parks
- Where
- Central Brooks Range, about
200 air miles north of Fairbanks - Coordinates
- 68.14° N
151.74° W (Anaktuvuk Pass ranger station) - Established
- Monument 1 December 1978;
park and preserve 2 December 1980 - Area
- 8,472,505 acres, park
and preserve (Park Service) - Roads and trails
- None inside the park;
arrival by air taxi or on foot - Best visited
- Mid-June to summer’s end
(rivers free of ice; NPS) - Advisory
- United States
(no State Department level)
The little plane set us down on a gravel bar and went away, and that was the last engine for days. No path, no sign, no other tent. The tundra was all soft hummocks that tipped me over politely every few steps. Grey mountains all round, a wide braided river, and on a bend of it, in midsummer, a white shelf of ice that had not heard the news.
The short answer
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is a unit of the US National Park Service in the central Brooks Range of northern Alaska, which the Park Service calls the northernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains. President Jimmy Carter proclaimed Gates of the Arctic National Monument on 1 December 1978, and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act established the national park and preserve on 2 December 1980. The Park Service gives its total as 8,472,505 acres: a national park of 7,523,897 acres and two preserve units of 948,608 acres combined, nearly 200 miles long and 130 miles wide. Most of the park is designated wilderness, the Park Service’s second largest, and with neighbouring Kobuk Valley National Park and Noatak National Preserve it forms one of the largest protected parkland areas in the world. The difference between park and preserve, the Park Service says, is that sport hunting and trapping are allowed in the preserve; subsistence hunting and trapping are allowed in both.
Why it's worth knowing
A park with nothing built in it. No trails, signs or permanent visitor facilities exist within the park, the Park Service says, and no roads lead into it, though most of its eastern boundary lies within 5 miles of the Dalton Highway; the few visitors who go in often spend days or weeks before meeting another person. Foothills rise into waves of mountains of about 4,000 feet and limestone and granite ridges over 7,000 feet. Few landmarks carry names on topographic maps, the park says. From November to March temperatures of −20°F to −50°F persist; backpackers and river runners arrive in mid-June, when the rivers come free of ice. Tussocks and alder thickets make walking slow, and the park says backpackers often make only five miles a day.
Six wild rivers. The 1980 act designated six national wild rivers in the park: the Alatna, John, Kobuk, Noatak, North Fork of the Koyukuk and Tinayguk. Their waters are mostly Class I and II with a few harder rapids, the Park Service says, and they rise fast after rain because water runs off the permafrost instead of soaking in; a storm fifty miles upriver can raise a river where you are. The Arrigetch Peaks and Walker Lake were made national natural landmarks in 1968, before the park existed; the Park Service notes that the Arrigetch Peaks were recognised as a landmark to the Nunamiut people.
Caribou country. The park holds major parts of the range of the Western Arctic caribou herd, which uses ancient routes through the mountains on its migrations, along with grizzly and black bears, wolves, moose, Dall sheep, wolverines and muskoxen, the Park Service says. Wildlife is widely spread, because large areas are needed to sustain life in the Arctic.
The field notes
A village inside a wilderness
Anaktuvuk Pass, a Nunamiut Iñupiat village at the top of a wide 2,100-foot mountain pass, lies within the park, and most of its residents still rely on subsistence activities such as caribou hunting, the Park Service says. People have lived in the Brooks Range for more than 13,000 years, the park’s history page says; its overview gives at least 12,000 years in one passage and more than 13,000 in another, and the park’s summary says over ten thousand. Eleven resident-zone communities are associated with the park today. The village has a ranger station staffed from April to the end of September and the Simon Paneak Memorial Museum on Nunamiut history and culture. An easement lets backcountry visitors cross Native corporation land around the village and camp as needed on the way to park land, the park says, provided they camp at least half a mile from any active subsistence camp and do not interfere with subsistence activities.
The man who named the gates
Robert Marshall travelled the North Fork Koyukuk country from 1929 to 1939, the Park Service says, and used the gold-rush town of Wiseman as his starting point, once staying there a full year; his book about it, Arctic Village, paid each resident a share of its sales. He named Frigid Crags and Boreal Mountain, the twin peaks either side of the North Fork, and called them the gates from the central Brooks Range into the far north. The park says Marshall’s ideas were later written into the 1964 Wilderness Act, and that his descriptions of the Brooks Range inspired the studies that led to the park.
August 2014The granite spires of the Arrigetch Peaks, from the air.
Photograph: NPS / Sean Tevebaugh · Public domain
July 2014A small tarn in the Oolah Valley, in the Itkillik Preserve.
Photograph: NPS Photo / Cadence Cook · Public domain · cropped
May 2016A ptarmigan in spring plumage on the tundra.
Photograph: NPS / Nina Chambers · Public domain · cropped
- Go to the orientation before you fly in, and listen to the part about bears twice.
- This land feeds families who have hunted it for a very long time. Camp well away from anyone’s camp, and ask before you cross.
- Keep every crumb in the hard container, including the crumbs in your pockets. Especially those.
- Plan your days by the river, not by the map. The tundra keeps its own time.
- Tick off each mountain as it passes. (I could not find names for most of them, so the list now says ‘grey one’, ‘another grey one’ and ‘the one wearing a cloud’. It is a better list for it.)
A shelf of aufeis in a summer river. Many northern rivers have aufeis, sometimes called overflow ice, the Park Service says: as a river begins to freeze in the autumn, its water flows up and over the new ice, layer upon layer, and by the end of winter the layers may be more than 15 feet thick. It can cover long stretches of a river, block its channels or calve into it like icebergs, and in some rivers of Gates of the Arctic it lasts until late summer, which is why the park tells river travellers to keep watching the water ahead of them.
Tally, in the marginA shelf of white ice in the river in the middle of summer, with flowers out on the bank beside it. I took it for a mistake, then for a leftover, and not until the second day did I see that it was simply taking its time, so I sat down beside it and took mine.
Getting there
How to get there. Access begins in Fairbanks, the Park Service says, where several small airlines fly daily to the gateway communities of Bettles and Anaktuvuk Pass and make flag stops at Coldfoot. Most visitors then fly into the park by air taxi in small aircraft on floats or tundra tyres; the park publishes a list of authorised air taxi providers. Others walk in from the airstrip at Anaktuvuk Pass, which is surrounded by Native land, or from the Dalton Highway, which parallels the park’s eastern boundary; both routes involve river crossings and neither has a trail. Coldfoot is 280 miles north of Fairbanks on the Dalton Highway, which the park describes as a mostly unpaved, two-lane industrial road with no services between Fairbanks and Coldfoot. Bettles Field lies about 20 miles south of the park’s southern boundary and is reached by scheduled flights.
When to go. Backpackers and river travellers arrive in mid-June, as the rivers become free of ice, the Park Service says; the highest water is generally in May and June, and dog-sledders come out in March as the sun returns. Winters are long and cold, with temperatures of −20°F to −50°F from November to March.
What to arrange ahead. The park’s fees and permits pages, read on 31 October 2026, say no entrance fee, pass, permit or registration is needed to enter, though visitors are asked to attend a backcountry orientation at one of the park’s visitor centres in Bettles, Anaktuvuk Pass, Coldfoot or Fairbanks, where bear-resistant food containers can be borrowed. Organised groups need to contact the park several months ahead; drones are prohibited. Most charter operators will not carry rigid canoes, so river trips use rafts, inflatable canoes or packrafts.
Safety. The State Department’s travel advisories cover other countries, so none applies here. The park says visitors must be self-sufficient. Its alerts file, read on 31 October 2026, carried an alert that a brown bear had obtained food from a soft-sided container in the Arrigetch Peaks area on 13 August 2026, and the park strongly recommended hard-sided containers there. It lists cold water, quickly changing water levels, logjams and aufeis among the hazards of its rivers.
Mark this place
Common questions
How do you get into Gates of the Arctic National Park?
There are no roads or trails into Gates of the Arctic, the National Park Service says. Visitors fly from Fairbanks to Bettles, Anaktuvuk Pass or Coldfoot, then take an air taxi on floats or tundra tyres into the park, or walk in from Anaktuvuk Pass or the Dalton Highway, crossing rivers on the way.
Are there trails or campgrounds in Gates of the Arctic?
No. The National Park Service says no trails, signs or permanent visitor facilities exist within Gates of the Arctic, so visitors choose their own routes and campsites. It asks them to practise Leave No Trace camping and to carry all food in bear-resistant containers, which its visitor centres lend.
Do you need a permit to visit Gates of the Arctic?
No permit, entrance fee or registration is needed to enter Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, its fees and permits pages said on 31 October 2026. The Park Service asks visitors to attend a backcountry orientation at a park visitor centre first, and organised groups need permits.
Where did the name Gates of the Arctic come from?
From Robert Marshall, the forester and wilderness writer who travelled the Brooks Range from 1929. He named two peaks on the North Fork of the Koyukuk River, Frigid Crags and Boreal Mountain, and called them the gates of the Arctic, the National Park Service says.
How big is Gates of the Arctic?
The National Park Service gives Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve as 8,472,505 acres: a national park of 7,523,897 acres and two preserve units of 948,608 acres, nearly 200 miles long and 130 miles wide. Most of the park is designated wilderness, the Park Service’s second largest.
Does anyone live inside Gates of the Arctic?
Yes. Anaktuvuk Pass, a Nunamiut Iñupiat village at the top of a 2,100-foot mountain pass, lies inside Gates of the Arctic, and many residents rely on subsistence hunting, the National Park Service says. Visitors crossing Native corporation land must camp at least half a mile from any active subsistence camp.
When is the best time to visit Gates of the Arctic?
The National Park Service says backpackers and river travellers arrive in Gates of the Arctic in mid-June, when the rivers become free of ice, and that the highest water is generally in May and June. From November to March, temperatures of minus 20 to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit persist.
What rivers run through Gates of the Arctic?
Six national wild rivers designated in 1980 cross Gates of the Arctic: the Alatna, John, Kobuk, Noatak, North Fork of the Koyukuk and Tinayguk, the National Park Service says. The Killik, Itkillik and sometimes the Nigu are floated too; most river trips use rafts or packrafts flown in by air taxi.
What to pack: the Ice & high latitudes kit