Celebrating America's 250th at Katmai

Rangers raise the American Flag at Brooks Camp

NPS / K. Moore

Our Landscapes Shape Our Stories

America’s natural and cultural landscapes embody an evolving national story. Katmai National Park and Preserve offers a powerful lens through which visitors can experience an important part of this story. This year, when America celebrates its 250th year of independence, the park honors the places that sustain its communities, whether human or wildlife.

Humans have lived on this landscape for thousands of years. Today, Katmai National Park benefits from partnerships with the Sugpiaq, Yup'ik, and Dena'ina people. Their lives are deeply intertwined with the wildlife that live here, and their knowledge helps us steward these lands.

Katmai gives visitors the opportunity to contemplate the meaning of the founding values of the United States: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life, particularly wildlife, is abundantly present in the park. Experiencing that abundance reminds us how miraculous a thing life is.

The lack of infrastructure in Katmai National Park allows wildlife like caribou, bears, and birds to move freely across the landscape to find food and produce offspring. Though access is hard, once here, visitors, like our wildlife, have liberty to explore the landscape, and many treasure that liberty.

Many who visit will tell you their happiness depends on knowing that places such as Katmai exist, that they are an integral part of our nation’s history and identity.

In this harsh, remote terrain, the resilience of salmon also teaches us the importance of these intact landscapes. Freely moving waters enable salmon to return to their spawning ground each year without artificial obstacles. The salmon feed the forest, not just the bears. Scraps of salmon and salmon-filled bear scat can be found throughout the forest, even in the trees.

Though Katmai is hard to access, often involving many flights or boat trips, it is accessible online through its webcams. Viewers can experience Katmai and contemplate our nation’s founding values virtually. Katmai’s partnership with explore.org allows anyone anywhere in the world to do this, extending the benefits of the park globally.

Katmai’s story helps visitors of all ages understand its importance and consider what the ideals that created it will mean for our nation in the next 250 years.

 

More to discover

Fat Bear Week

Learn all about Katmai's famous fat bears. Fat Bear Week voting begins September 22 and ends on Fat Bear Tuesday, September 29

NPS Celebrates America's 250th

NPS Celebrates America's 250th

NPS is the proud steward of America’s most sacred historical places and joins in celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence

Watch Bears Live

Watch Katmai's Bearcams

In partnership with explore.org, tune into watch brown bears bulk up for winter all summer long