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Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

Although you can certainly appreciate wilderness from afar—online, on television, or in books—first-hand experiences in nature such as campng or hunting enable you to enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas provide. Wilderness areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” opportunities to see wildlife, a chance to renew and refresh, and the health benefits of exercising outside. You can even bring your well-behaved dog to many wilderness areas.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

When Bob Marshall explored this region in the early 1930s, two looming peaks near the head of the North Fork of the Koyukuk River (Boreal Mountain and Frigid Crags) left a lasting impression on him. He dubbed them "The Gates of the Arctic." Straddling the central Brooks Range and looming entirely above the Arctic Circle, the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve protects a mass of land four times larger than Yellowstone National Park. The park is managed primarily as Wilderness. On the south slopes visitors will find a sampling of thin boreal forest. The ragged, majestic peaks of the Brooks Range invite exploration and give way northward to rolling tundra, too far north for many trees to grow, where barren-ground caribou travel in huge herds and grizzly bears roam away their solitary lives. Moose, wolves, Dall sheep, black bears, and smaller mammals share the park. Eagles and hawks soar overhead. On the extreme northern verge the land is polar desert, one of the driest places on Earth.

Remote glacier-carved valleys split the range, drained by clear rivers and dotted with alpine lakes. Anglers head here for the grayling, char, and chum salmon often found in abundance in the rivers. Although no established trails exist, backpacking is becoming increasingly popular in Gates of the Arctic. Many hikers carry a firearm for protection from bears, but attacks are uncommon. Climbers are attracted to the Arrigetch Peaks and Mount Igikpak. Sport hunting and trapping is allowed on the preserve section. Although camping is unrestricted, wood is scarce and campfires are discouraged.

Waterways suitable for floating or paddling are seemingly endless and include all or part of six Wild and Scenic Rivers: all 83 miles of the Alatna River, which roars out of the Arrigetch Peaks; all 52 miles of the crystalline John River; all 110 miles of the Kobuk River, with its sweeping vistas of the Brooks Range; all 102 miles of the North Fork of the Koyukuk River, running through a glacier-carved valley; part of the 330 miles of the Noatak River, the longest member of the Wild and Scenic family in America; and all 44 miles of the remote and seldom visited Tinayguk River.

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