Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is an American national park located in Southeast Alaska west of Juneau. President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area around Glacier Bay a national monument under the Antiquities Act on February 26, 1925. Subsequent to an expansion of the monument by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) enlarged the national monument by 523,000 acres on December 2, 1980, and created Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The national preserve encompasses 58,406 acres of public land to the immediate northwest of the park, protecting a portion of the Alsek River with its fish and wildlife habitats, while allowing sport hunting.
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve is an American national park and preserve managed by the National Park Service in south central Alaska. The park and preserve were established in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The protected areas are included in an International Biosphere Reserve and are part of the Kluane/Wrangell–St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park and preserve form the largest area managed by the National Park Service with a total of 13,175,799.07 acres, an expanse larger than nine U.S. states and around the same size as Croatia. 8,323,147.59 acres are designated as the national park and the remaining 4,852,652.14 acres are designated as the preserve. The area designated as the national park alone is larger than the 47 smallest American national parks combined and is more than twice the size of all but two other national parks. Its area makes up over 15% of all national park designated land in the United States.
The Alsek River is a wilderness river flowing from Yukon into Northern British Columbia and into Alaska. It enters the Gulf of Alaska at Dry Bay.
An ice field is a mass of interconnected valley glaciers on a mountain mass with protruding rock ridges or summits. They are often found in the colder climates and higher altitudes of the world where there is sufficient precipitation for them to form. The higher peaks of the underlying mountain rock that protrude through the icefields are known as nunataks. Ice fields are larger than alpine glaciers, but smaller than ice caps and ice sheets. The topography of ice fields is determined by the shape of the surrounding landforms, while ice caps have their own forms overriding underlying shapes.
Yukon is in the northwestern corner of Canada and is bordered by Alaska and the Northwest Territories. The sparsely populated territory abounds with natural scenic beauty, with snowmelt lakes and perennial white-capped mountains, including many of Canada's highest mountains. The territory's climate is Arctic in territory north of Old Crow, subarctic in the region, between Whitehorse and Old Crow, and humid continental climate south of Whitehorse and in areas close to the British Columbia border. Most of the territory is boreal forest with tundra being the main vegetation zone only in the extreme north and at high elevations.
Tatshenshini-Alsek Park or Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Wilderness Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada 9,580 km2 (3,700 sq mi). It was established in 1993 after an intensive campaign by Canadian and American conservation organizations to halt mining exploration and development in the area, and protect the area for its strong natural heritage and biodiversity values.
Kluane Lake is located in the southwest area of the Yukon. It is the largest lake contained entirely within Yukon at approximately 408 km2 (158 sq mi), and 81 km (50 mi) long.
The Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (CAFN) is a First Nation band government in Yukon, Canada. Historically its original population centres were Champagne and Aishihik, with bands active in both coastal and interior areas.
Wrangell–Saint Elias Wilderness is a wilderness area located in southeastern Alaska in the United States. At 9,078,675 acres (3,674,009 ha), the Wrangell–Saint Elias Wilderness is the largest designated U.S. Wilderness Area. The wilderness lies within Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the largest national park in the United States.
The Alsek Ranges are the southeasternmost subdivision of the Saint Elias Mountains of the Pacific Cordillera. They span the region between the Alsek River, Glacier Bay and the Kelsall River. Their western boundary is the Grand Pacific Glacier, beyond which is the Fairweather Range, another subdivision of the St. Elias Mountains. To their east is the northernmost section of the Boundary Ranges, the northernmost subdivision of the Coast Mountains and which are also known as the Alaska Boundary Range, and which run south to the Nass River and form, as their name indicates, the spine of the boundary between the American state of Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Kluane / Wrangell–St. Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek is an international park system located in Canada and the United States, at the border of Yukon, Alaska and British Columbia.
Kusawa Lake is a lake in the southern Yukon, Canada. Kusawa means "long narrow lake" in the Tlingit language. The Kusawa Lake is a lake in Canada's Yukon Territory. It is located at an altitude of 671 m (2,201 ft) and is 60 km (37 mi) southwest of Whitehorse near the British Columbia border. It meanders over a length of 75 km (47 mi) with a maximum width of about 2.5 km (1.6 mi) through the mountains in the north of the Boundary Ranges. It is fed by the Primrose River and Kusawa River. The Takhini outflows to the Yukon River from the northern tip of Kusawa Lake. Kusawa Lake has an area of 142 km2 (55 sq mi). The lake has a maximum depth of 140 m (460 ft) and is of glacial origin. It is a common tourist destination and is also popular for fishing.
The Alaska–St. Elias Range tundra is an ecoregion of northwestern North America.
The Kaskawulsh Glacier is a vast, temperate valley glacier nestled in the St. Elias Mountains, within Kluane National Park in the Canadian territory of Yukon.
The Yukon Ice Patches are a series of dozens of ice patches in the southern Yukon discovered in 1997, which have preserved hundreds of archaeological artifacts, with some more than 9,000 years old. The first ice patch was discovered on the mountain Thandlät, west of the Kusawa Lake campground which is 60 km (37 mi) west of Whitehorse, Yukon. The Yukon Ice Patch Project began shortly afterwards with a partnership between archaeologists in partnership with six Yukon First Nations, on whose traditional territory the ice patches were found. They include the Carcross/Tagish First Nation, the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council, the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, the Kluane First Nation, and the Teslin Tlingit Council.
