Kluane National Park and Reserve

Kluane National Park and Reserve

Kluane National Park and Reserve, in full Kluane National Park and Reserve of Canada, vast mountain wilderness with extensive ice fields in southwestern Yukon, northwestern Canada. The park is located about 100 miles (160 km) west of Whitehorse. It borders Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska, U.S., to the west and southwest and Tatshenshini-Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park in British Columbia to the southeast. Established as a game reserve in 1942, the area became a national park and reserve in 1972 and was designated as part of a regional UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. The park has an area of 8,487 square miles (21,980 square km), which is dominated by two northwest–southeast-trending parallel mountain systems. The St. Elias Mountains, in the southwest, reach an elevation of 19,551 feet (5,959 metres) at Mount Logan, the highest point in Canada and the second highest peak in North America, in the southwestern corner of the park. Those mountains accommodate one of the largest nonpolar ice field systems in the world and include the Steele, Kaskawulsh, and Lowell glaciers. The St. Elias Mountains are separated from the Kluane Range of mountains to the northeast by the valleys and plateaus of the Duke Depression. The Kluane Range, with peaks averaging more than 6,600 feet (2,000 metres) in height, is more densely vegetated and is inhabited by more wildlife than much of the rest of the park and is accessible on its eastern slopes from the Alaska Highway.

Montane forest, including spruce, aspen, and poplar, covers much of the park’s lower valleys and slopes. Low-growing willow, alder, and dwarf birch are found in the transitional subalpine zone. Alpine tundra at higher elevations includes a variety of colourful Arctic flowers. Dall sheep are the park’s most numerous large mammal, and a large protected population of grizzly bears live in the park. Other wildlife includes moose, mountain goats, deer, wolves, black bears, caribou, wolverines, ground squirrels, and many species of birds. Researchers in the 1990s catalogued a surprising variety of plant and animal life, including pikas and spiders, on the area’s nunataks (crags or peaks surrounded by glaciers). Hiking, rafting and kayaking on the Alsek River, flying over the Kaskawulsh Glacier, and fishing are popular activities in the park.