Arctic

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is America's largest and northernmost national wildlife refuge, in northeastern Alaska, with about 19.64 million acres stretching 200 miles from the Arctic Ocean south over the Brooks Range into the boreal forest of the Yukon River basin^[1]. It includes the homelands of the Iñupiat people of the north coast and the Gwich'in people of interior Alaska and northwest Canada^[1].

The refuge's wildlife includes polar bears, caribou, Dall sheep, muskoxen, Dolly Varden char and Arctic grayling, and birds from around the world breed, feed and raise young there^[1]. Its land is divided into five ecological regions: coastal marine, coastal plain tundra, alpine tundra, forest-tundra transition and boreal forest^[1]. The 1987 U.S.-Canada agreement addresses management of the Porcupine Caribou herd^[1].

Vegetation follows the refuge's five ecological regions, from coastal plain tundra and alpine tundra to the forest-tundra transition and boreal forest in the south^[1].

The Brooks Range runs through the refuge, and a Coastal Plain lies between the mountains and the Arctic coast^[1]. Barrier islands and their enclosed lagoons along the northeast coast are within the refuge boundaries, per a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court ruling^[1].

The refuge is arctic, with long, cold winters and a short summer on the tundra.

Indigenous peoples have lived on these lands for thousands of years, and Iñupiat and Gwich'in people live in the region today^[1]. Olaus and Mardy Murie were influential proponents of a northern refuge^[1].

The Eisenhower administration established the 8.9-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960^[1]. In 1980 the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act re-designated it as part of the larger refuge, and in 1988 Congress added 325,000 acres^[1]. In 2017 the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provided for an oil and gas program on the Coastal Plain^[1].

The refuge has no developed trail system; its draws are the Brooks Range, the Coastal Plain and its rivers. The Sheenjek, Ivishak and Wind rivers are designated Wild and Scenic Rivers, and nearly 40 percent of the refuge, about eight million acres, is designated Wilderness, the largest area of designated Wilderness in the National Wildlife Refuge System^[1].

The refuge is in a remote part of northeastern Alaska; its Fish and Wildlife Service pages direct visitors to separate pages on activities, tours, trails, rules and permits^[1].

Under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act the refuge's purposes are to conserve animals and plants in their natural diversity, provide for subsistence hunting and gathering, protect water quality and quantity, and fulfill international wildlife treaty obligations^[1].