I’m guessing that a trip to Alaska is on your life list. It’s one of the few places left on earth where you can go deep into the wilderness and wander among bear, caribou, moose, Dall sheep, and other animals in their mostly untouched natural habitat. As we enter the temperate summer travel season, now is the ideal time to head north and get a glimpse of the many wonders my home state has to offer.

I’ve lived and worked in the Land of the Midnight Sun for more than three decades and love to introduce both new and experienced travelers to its beauty and history. Despite some common misconceptions, getting off the beaten path and exploring Alaska’s backcountry is relatively easy and it’ll take you where the geology is breathtaking and varied, the cultural history is fascinating, and the opportunities for adventure are limitless. Here are a few of my favorite trip ideas, with a few tips on getting the most out of your experience.

1. Marvel at mountains and mining history in the country’s largest national park. One of my favorite Alaska drives is heading east out of Palmer on the Glenn Highway to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve. As you travel alongside the Matanuska River and the Chugach Mountains, stop at the Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site for a great overview of the glacier and a short hike to stretch your legs. The further east you travel, the more the mountains of Wrangell-St. Elias will emerge from the horizon, so you’ll want your camera fully charged before you start this drive!

The highway stops in Glennallen and you have to turn. Head south towards Valdez and start looking for the signs to McCarthy, the “party town” (think whiskey and women) for miners who worked at the Kennecott Copper Mine until it shut down in 1938. For almost 60 years it sat idle until the National Park Service began restoring and interpreting the mine in the late 1990s. Before you turn off for McCarthy, stop at the Park Service visitor center for an introduction to both the cultures and natural wonders of America’s largest national park; Wrangell-St. Elias is six times the size of Yellowstone!

Both the mine itself and McCarthy are must-see destinations for anyone visiting the park. I took my mom here a few years ago on one of her many trips to Alaska, and we stayed at the Kennecott Glacier Lodge where we enjoyed sharing our meals with visitors from around the world in their family-style dining room. For those who don’t want to stay by the mine, the McCarthy Lodge and the Ma Johnson Hotel offer food and lodging on McCarthy’s rustic main street. Regardless of where you stay, be sure to give yourself enough time to explore the mining history, walk on a glacier, and enjoy a “flightseeing” adventure with one of the local air taxi services.

2. Take an unforgettable boat tour of Glacier Bay. Another of my mom’s favorite national park lodges is Glacier Bay Lodge—the only accommodations available inside Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve. Built during the 50th anniversary of the National Park Service in the 1960s, Glacier Bay Lodge is one of Alaska’s undiscovered gems. You’ll need to get yourself to the small town of Gustavus by either state ferry or airplane and the lodge will pick you up for the 11-mile drive to the park. The majesty of Glacier Bay is unveiled every day from the deck of the lodge’s day boat—the must-do trip for every visitor. You spend all day exploring the park’s tidewater glaciers and keeping your eyes peeled for sea otters, sea lions, puffins, mountain goats, humpback and orca whales, and, if you are lucky, a brown bear feeding along the coastline.

3. Get up-close with Alaska’s coastal brown bears. If you want to spend time up close and personal with brown bears, I can’t recommend enough taking a trip to either Katmai or Lake Clark National Park & Preserve. Flying to Katmai from Homer to spend a day with one of that city’s seasoned bear guides involves a float plane ride over Cook Inlet. Mom went with me on an early summer trip before the salmon started running and we watched brown bears in coastal tidal flats feeding on grass (which made me think of cows). You land in the ocean, wade ashore (they provide the hip-waders), and spend the day watching all kinds of bear behavior (warning: this is also mating season!). Later in the summer, you’ll land on small lakes near salmon streams and spend the day watching bears fish and eat—and eat, and eat! If you have more time and want to spend several days watching bears, try one of the lodges at Silver Salmon Creek in Lake Clark National Park & Preserve.

4. Go wild, with a guide. I mention hiring a guide to see brown bears. Don’t be shy about hiring someone to show you the sights, sounds, and smells of Alaska (yes, rotting fish is pretty smelly!). Guides know where the best wildlife viewing is, they know the most efficient way to get there, and from a safety perspective, there’s nothing like traveling in Alaska with someone who’s been there before. This is especially true if you want even more of a wilderness experience in one of Alaska’s more remote parks, like Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve, the park system’s premier wilderness park. Here you can run rivers, hike along alpine ridges, and even do some climbing. If backcountry travel is on your bucket list, there are several companies that provide guided trips to Gates. Be sure to take plenty of mosquito repellant and don’t be surprised if the sun never goes away!

Planning your trip to Alaska can be a daunting task. Here are a couple more resources, whether you’re looking for a backcountry experience or seeking out lodges and day trips. Either way, a trip to the Last Frontier will provide you with a lifetime of memories.

If you liked this story, you might also like

• Alaska: Reflections from a Guest in the Wilderness (August 23, 2012)
• Friday Photos: Happy Anniversary ANILCA (December 14, 2012)
• Getting Close to Katmai’s Bears in the Hopes of Protecting Them (July 31, 2012)

Fort McHenry is a source of fierce pride for the residents of Baltimore. It is here that our citizens stopped the British Navy from attacking the city during the Battle of Baltimore in September of 1814. The flag that flew over the fort the morning after the battle not only signaled a defensive victory, but inspired a young lawyer, watching from a nearby ship, to compose a poem that would eventually become our national anthem. I visited that exact same flag this past weekend. It’s currently on display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. I grew up in this area and have taken many trips to the museums in Washington throughout my life. I’ve seen this flag several times. This one object, more than any other, inspires a personal sense of patriotism and continues to make me reflect on the events that happened at Fort McHenry in Baltimore almost 200 years ago. 

Now, I get to visit Fort McHenry several times a month. It is the location of the National Aquarium’s urban field station. Adjacent to the fort is a ten-acre wetland created by the Maryland Department of Transportation as mitigation for constructing the I-95 tunnel that runs just offshore of the park. After years of inattention, the National Aquarium took over stewardship of the wetland in 1998 for use as an urban outdoor classroom and site for community-based stewardship activities and citizen science. We’ve hosted thousands of local students at the wetland site. Sometimes, it is the first time Baltimore City students get a chance to make a meaningful connection to the natural world. Students may have a chance to seine for fish (up to 20 species have been identified using the wetlands), bird watch (more than 250 species have been documented at the fort), plant native plants in the wetland or demonstration rain garden, or study wetland ecology. They may also have a chance to observe any of the large variety of animals that use the marsh for food or shelter. The list includes river otter, muskrat, deer, fox, and many species of turtle and snake. 

Every spring, the National Aquarium partners with the National Park Service, NPCA, and others to recruit volunteers to restore this vital habitat. Volunteers represent the diversity of the Baltimore community and come from local community associations, corporations, schools, churches, civic groups, social clubs, and other venues. Like us, our volunteers see real value in creating a healthy habitat for local wildlife and a much-needed outdoor classroom space for students. Since volunteer efforts began, citizens have helped plant native trees and marsh grasses, install bird boxes, and collect nearly 600,000 pieces of debris from this urban wetland. This work all adds up to create a valuable green space in the heart of Baltimore City.

Our next event will be held April 27, 2013, in celebration of Earth Day and Arbor Day. If you would like to help support our restoration and environmental education efforts at the fort, check out our ioby project page. If you are interested in joining us as a volunteer, please register here.

If you liked this story, you might also like

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• O Say, Can You See the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail? (August 7, 2012)

I get a real sense of accomplishment when the Park Service takes action on an issue we’ve been pushing for years. In early April, the agency renewed temporary regulations to keep hunters from killing black bear cubs and sows with cubs with spotlights at their den sites in Gates of the Arctic and Denali National Preserves.  And new temporary regulations were adopted to disallow using bait to hunt brown bears at Denali, Wrangell-St. Elias, and Yukon-Charley National Preserves in Alaska. This is great news for bears in our northernmost national preserves.

For those less familiar with bear hunting, “spotlighting” is a controversial practice that involves crawling into a bear’s den while it is hibernating, waking it by shining a light in its eyes, and shooting it. That is hardly sportsmanlike, and it’s not “hunting.” That’s killing.

Why, do you ask, does the Park Service have to take this action to renew its bans on these practices each year? Because Alaska allows spotlighting, baiting, and other objectionable hunting methods throughout the state. The Alaska Board of Game makes the rules for managing wildlife, and its main goal is to ensure that there are more than enough animals for human consumption—quite a different approach to managing wildlife populations than the Park Service takes. In order to ensure there is plenty of moose and caribou for hunters to kill, the state has a very active Intensive Management program aimed at reducing populations of wolves and bears. To increase the number of wolves and bears hunters are permitted to kill, the Alaska Board of Game has increasingly liberalized hunting methods to include baiting and spotlighting.

This treatment of bears—which serve an important ecological role at the top of the food chain—is in stark contrast to how Congress directs the Park Service to manage wildlife. The Park Service must specifically maintain natural and healthy populations, in Alaska and throughout the nation, and Park Service management policies make it explicitly clear that manipulating any wildlife population (like wolves and bears) to benefit a hunted species (like moose or caribou) is not allowed. Period. No exceptions.

From the perspective of the state of Alaska, this is simply a state’s rights issue. Officials here have argued long and hard that the Park Service has no authority to reject these hunting rules adopted by the Board of Game. NPCA and the Park Service have a very different opinion. The Park Service has all the authority in the world to reject state hunting rules that conflict with Park Service regulations and management objectives. It has been successfully tested in states all across the country.

As I’ve said before, the issue is not if sport hunting is allowed on national preserve lands—it is. The issue is how you hunt.

Now that the Park Service has again exercised its right to push back on the Board of Game’s hunting regulations, we are highly supportive of taking the all-important next step of making the Park Service position a permanent regulation so the agency doesn’t have to renew these rules every year. We’re hoping that’ll happen this spring—and based on our past advocacy on this issue, we know we have thousands of NPCA supporters around the country behind us as we urge the Park Service to do the right thing to protect these important and iconic animals.

If you liked this story, you might also like

• NPS Should Not Be Forced to Support Alaska’s War on Bears (February 1, 2012)
• Getting Close to Katmai’s Bears in the Hopes of Protecting Them (July 31, 2012)
• Death of Alpha Wolf Sparks Renewed Concern over Hunting near Yellowstone (December 27, 2012)

Several years ago, I was driving along a snaking bend of State Highway 22 that bisects Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and encountered the body of massive bull elk hanging from a fence that paralleled the road, its back legs hamstrung by four unyielding strands of barbed wire. His antlers were partially buried in a deep, windswept trough of snow and his lifeless eyes fixed on some distant point on the horizon. I wondered how long he had been hanging there.

Since that time, I have become more aware of man’s heavy hand on the landscape, and a deep desire has grown in my heart to change things—really fix the problems, beyond the ebb and flow of politics. Last year, Nature Valley generously granted my wish.

In partnership with Nature Valley, Grand Teton National Park, the Pinto Ranch, and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation, NPCA embarked on an ambitious fence-modification project to allow pronghorn, bison, and elk safe passage into the park. The eastern boundary of Grand Teton was historically used for cattle grazing since the late 1800s, and many of these fences still stand in various stages of disrepair and pose a serious hazard to migrating animals. Often, the park simply does not have the budget to remove them. That’s why NPCA works so hard to provide support to parks like Grand Teton, whose maintenance backlog is nearing $900 million, and why we also work literally on the ground with partners like Nature Valley to help preserve the large landscapes that sustain so many wildlife species.

Grand Teton still permits some cattle grazing in the park—a grandfathered use from its historic ranching past. The fences in the North Elk Ranch allotment have been kept in good condition, but still block wildlife movement in the northern part of the park, where many species of animals migrate through. In the spring, we met with the manager of the Pinto Ranch to discuss how to make the fences in this area safer for wildlife, while still providing a reliable enclosure for his cows. We collectively agreed upon a modification of a five-mile fence that would raise the bottom wire to allow pronghorn to crawl under it, and then add a top rail to prevent wildlife from becoming ensnared as they jumped the fence.  In the fall, 25 dedicated volunteers headed out to the problem fence, armed with an arsenal of tools. Together we broke the hold of those tenacious hooked strands and restrung the fence, as bison and pronghorn grazed nearby. The bison, being the curious creatures that they are, couldn’t resist a closer look and came to survey the unusual activity on their range.

Our volunteers ranged from 20 to 70 years old, men and women alike, led by our fearless leaders Greg and Gretchen, whose vigilance and efficiency helped keep us moving forward. Volunteers flanked the fence and pulled hard to remove wire and retrieve staples from tenacious old wood posts. As I surveyed our group toiling under the blazing sun, we more closely resembled a chain gang than a bunch of environmental do-gooders. It struck me that these people weren’t policy makers or activists; they were just regular folks out there trying to do something—or, more accurately, fix something. We fixed a lot of fence that day, and as the sun waned, we stood admiring our handiwork: the same sturdy posts, but now, without the harmful bottom wire.

Just as we were ready to hang up our gloves for the day, hauling big unwieldy loops of barbed wire into the back of the pick-up, I noticed a single pronghorn buck approach to within fifteen feet of where I stood. He sauntered over to the fence, contemplating what had changed, and nervously paced back and forth. In one sudden movement, he ducked his graceful horns in the newly cleared space, slipped under the fence, and headed to the nearby irrigation ditch for a drink. It took this intelligent creature less than ten minutes to realize that the obstacle that had been in place for decades was now gone, and to take advantage of our work.

There are some things in life that go beyond words, and I took this as a thank you of the highest order.

Scientists estimate that rats are responsible for half of bird and reptile extinctions worldwide, and island wildlife populations are particularly vulnerable. The Channel Islands provide critical habitat and nesting grounds for a variety of land and shore birds, including the threatened Scripps’s murrelet. In 2001 and 2002, seven governmental and nonprofit organizations collaborated on an innovative invasive species removal program as part of a larger effort to protect and restore biodiversity on the islands.

A new Park Service video describes some of the efforts conservationists made to remove the rats, and some of the hopeful results, including a four-fold increase in Scripps’s murrelet nests, an increase in the Scripps’s murrelets’ hatching rates from 30 to 85 percent, a wider habitat range for Cassin’s auklets, and strong improvements for other animal populations, including native lizards and mice. The researchers also recorded ashy storm-petrels nesting on the island—for the first time ever.

Park officials and their partners will release a report on their findings later this year, but in the meantime, the video summarizes the good news while capturing some of the scenic vistas that make this part of the world so special.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Learn more

• See more photos of park wildlife and learn more about these stunning islands by watching NPCA’s recent slideshow on this park.
• Read about the recent recovery of the island night lizard at Channel Islands National Park.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, most of the credit for the species’ successful recovery goes to a decision by the U.S. Navy and the Park Service to remove non-native pigs and goats from Santa Barbara, San Clemente, and San Nicholas Islands where the lizard lives (Santa Barbara Island is officially part of Channel Islands National Park; the other two islands are managed by the Navy). The invasive animals had degraded the lizards’ habitat, leading to the decline in their populations. After their removal, the lizards slowly but surely regained their footing. Now, more than 21 million of the reptiles live on San Clemente alone! (NPCA also fought successfully to remove non-native grazing animals from Channel Islands, though in a different region of the park. On Santa Rosa Island, a private hunting and cattle-grazing operation was also degrading habitat; the invasive species were finally completely removed by 2011.)

The island night lizard is one of 145 plant and animal species that live only on the Channel Islands and nowhere else on Earth. The lizard is also not the only threatened species to make a dramatic recovery at this park—the brown pelican and the island fox are two others that went from near-extinction to a healthy recovery. See photos of park wildlife and learn more about these stunning islands by checking out NPCA’s recent slideshow on this park.

A few interesting facts about the island night lizard, from the Park Service website:

• Studies on Santa Barbara Island have shown that island night lizards are not nocturnal as their name suggests, and are actually most active at midday.
• The island night lizard gives birth to live young (as opposed to laying eggs), which is not common among reptiles.
• Island night lizards are slow growing and long-lived, some reaching 25 years of age.
• During the course of their long lives, they accumulate many injuries, including regenerated tails, miscellaneous cuts, missing toes, eye injuries, infections, and the presence of cactus spines.
• With their unusually low metabolic rate, the lizards do not have high energy demands and can live on about half the food that other similar-sized lizards require.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Kevin was familiar enough with the wide-open skies of the Petrified Forest and the breathtaking views of its Painted Desert—how the captivating pinks and purples and all manner of blues, greens, and grays, seem to shift and brighten with every subtle change of sunlight. He was struck by the size of the ranch, though he wasn’t shocked; forage is so sparse in the desert, any cowhand needs a lot of land to graze just one or two steer.

What Kevin wasn’t expecting to see came at the end of the tour, when the group gathered in the waning daylight under a group of cottonwood trees. There, he spotted what at first glance appeared to be a large bird hunched quietly in a high branch. Kevin did a double-take as the lithe creature slowly uncurled and looked down at the group below. It was the first time he had ever seen a porcupine in the wild—a magical moment. The glimpse of a desert animal coming into view after a hot, dusty day is just one of those little surprises that makes this part of the country so special.

Fortunately, after years of private ownership, more people will soon be able to experience the McCauley Ranch. Shortly, the property will officially become part of Petrified National Park, thanks to an elaborate deal brokered between the family who owned the land, The Conservation Fund (an essential partner that now temporarily owns the ranch), and a generous anonymous donor. Oh, and Kevin, of course, who was there throughout the process as negotiations went back and forth, and back and forth again, over the value of this irreplaceable and mineral-rich slice of desert.

The Park Service has been waiting nearly nine years for the opportunity to acquire privately held pieces of land like the McCauley Ranch that are surrounded by the national park boundary, to fully incorporate them into the park. NPCA sometimes refers to these pockets of private land as “inholdings.” Inholdings often become sites for trophy homes and other incompatible development that can change the whole character of the surrounding parkland. In 2004, Congress voted to expand the boundaries of Petrified Forest National Park, but didn’t put any funding behind the expansion. As a result, some landowners have given up on future government funding, and have hitched their hopes for sale or lease to potash mining companies and other mineral development operations.

In this context, the effort to save the McCauley Ranch is a major victory. “The work I do is often about fighting battles that seem to never end, and even hard-earned victories can prove to be temporary,” Kevin told me. “It is just so satisfying to know we could come up with an agreement that worked for everyone, so that this land will be added to the park system forever.”

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

The disease is caused by a fungus that generally spreads from bat to bat, although people can also carry the spores on shoes and clothing. (Humans can’t contract the disease.) In caves where the animals were exposed to the disease for a year or longer, some types of bats suffered mortality rates of 90 percent or higher, raising the real risk of extinction for some species. Park officials at Mammoth Cave began taking precautions two years ago to reduce the possible spread of white-nose syndrome, including the use of decontamination mats to prevent the spores from clinging to visitors’ shoes. Now, the Park Service is launching a wider public information campaign.

This week, the Park Service released a series of three videos, Bats in Crisis, to help spread public awareness about the importance of bats in pollination and pest control, the deadliness of white-nose syndrome to bat populations, and ways that park visitors can prevent the spread of infection. Bat lovers and tourists to the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Southern states, take note.

Watch the other two videos in the series on the Park Service website.

The national parks that have reported bats with white-nose syndrome are: Acadia National Park (Maine), Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park (Washington, D.C, Maryland, and West Virginia), Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (Georgia and Tennessee), Cumberland Gap National Historical Park (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia), Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (New Jersey and Pennsylvania), Great Smoky Mountains National Park (North Carolina and Tennessee), Mammoth Cave National Park (Kentucky), New River Gorge National River (West Virginia), Ozark National Scenic Riverways (Missouri), and Russell Cave National Monument (Alabama).

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Learn more

• Bat populations are in decline around the world. Learn more about the problem at Bat Conservation International.
• Learn how to build a bat house to help protect bats near you on NPCA’s website.

Most of these new discoveries belong to the part of the animal kingdom that I refer to as “crawly things.” Park tourists may perk up when a photogenic deer or raccoon wanders by, but a wealth of ecologically significant spiders, moths, bacteria, and slime-molds have flitted and squirmed through the region year after year in relative obscurity—until now. Even as visitors thrill at the sight of black bears in Catalooche Valley and wild turkeys at Cade’s Cove, these researchers have been hard at work categorizing the smaller, more populous lifeforms teeming in leaf piles and puddles, just out of view.

Perhaps one of the most interesting new creatures found at Great Smoky Mountains is the arthropod formally known as Cosberella lamar alexanderi, pictured above. Dr. Earnest Bernard discovered this new species of springtail in 2006 and named it after Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander in recognition of the congressman’s history of support for the park. The insect’s colorful markings reminded Bernard of the red plaid shirt Alexander famously wore while campaigning across the state when he ran for governor in the 1970s. Little did the politician know then how his outfit would come to be memorialized in the scientific world. See for yourself if you think there’s a resemblance.

Learn more about Discover Life in America’s work by checking out their upcoming conference next month in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications

Each month, NPCA puts together a slideshow exploring one of the 398 amazing places in our National Park System. To get the featured park delivered to your inbox each month, sign up for Park Lines, NPCA’s newsletter, at www.npca.org/join.

-Jennifer Errick, Editor, Online Communications