Happy Birthday Novarupta!
Katmai National Monument was created in 1918 to preserve the famed Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, a spectacular forty square mile, 100 to 700 foot deep ash flow deposited by Novarupta Volcano in 1912. A National Park & Preserve since 1980, today Katmai is still famous for volcanoes, but also for brown bears, pristine waterways with abundant fish, remote wilderness, and a rugged coastline.
Features
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Brooks Camp
Brooks Camp is the most popular bear viewing location in the park. Click here for more information about planning your visit.
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A Wilderness Untouched?
For at least the last 9,000 years—before the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and before Brooks Camp was a haven for bears—Katmai was a home for people.
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Extra! Extra!
Read all about Katmai! Download (PDF, 4.96 MB) the latest edition of the Katmai newspaper, The Novarupta.
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Did You Know?
The first people in Katmai arrived about 9,000 years ago. They left behind artifacts like this one, a core from which small microblades were struck. Expert tool makers set the microblades into the sides of bone arrowheads to increase cutting power.