Kluane National Park and Reserve is a huge mountain wilderness area in Canada‘s Northwest Territories. It is in the southwest corner of the Yukon Territory, which is in the Northwest Territories. Officially, it’s called Kluane National Park and Reserve of Canada. It has a lot of ice fields and is made up of a lot of mountains. The park is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Whitehorse.
Kluane National Park
It is on the west and southwest by Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska, U.S., and on the southeast by Tatshenshini–Alsek Wilderness Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada. In 1942, the area became a game reserve. In 1972, it became a national park and reserve, and in 1979, it became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the area.
The park is 8,487 square miles (21,980 square km) in size and is mostly made up of two parallel mountain ranges that run northwest to southeast. In the southwest of the park, the St. Elias Mountains reach a height of 19,551 feet (5,959 meters) at Mount Logan, which is the highest point in Canada and the second highest peak in North America.
The Steele, Kaskawulsh, and Lowell glaciers are all part of one of the largest non-polar ice field systems in the world. It is made up of mountains. The valleys and plateaus of the Duke Depression separate the St. Elias Mountains from the Kluane Range of mountains to the northeast.
Kluane Whitehorse
Most of the peaks in the Kluane Range are higher than 6,000 feet (2,000 meters). It has more plants and animals than most of the rest of the park, and its eastern slopes can be reached by the Alaska Highway. Most of the lower valleys and slopes of the park are covered by a forest of spruce, aspen, and poplar trees. In the transitional sub-alpine zone, willow, alder, and dwarf birch grow slowly.
Arctic flowers of many colors grow in the alpine tundra at higher elevations. Most of the big animals in the park are Dall sheep, and there are a lot of grizzly bears that are protected there. Moose, mountain goats, deer, wolves, black bears, caribou, wolverines, ground squirrels, and many types of birds are among the other animals that live there.
In the 1990s, scientists studied the area’s nunataks and found a wide range of plants and animals, such as pikas and spiders, that were hard to believe (crags or peaks surrounded by glaciers). In the park, people like to go hiking, rafting, and kayaking on the Alsek River, fly over the Kaskawulsh Glacier, and fish.
Kathleen Lake Yukon
Kathleen Lake has a day-use area with a boat launch, picnic areas, and a campground. This area is open from the middle of May to the middle of September. Hiking is a popular thing to do on trails like St. Elias Lake, Mush Lake Road, Shorty Creek, Cottonwood, Rock Glacier, King’s Throne, Kokanee, Auriol, Dezadeash River Trail, Alsek Trail, Sheep Creek Trail, Bullion Plateau Trail, Slims West, or Soldiers Summit.
Some of the other things you can do in the park are rafting on the Alsek River, which is a Canadian Heritage river, mountain biking on old mining roads, horseback riding through the Alsek Pass, boating on Kathleen Lake and Mush Lake, and fishing for lake trout, Arctic grayling, rainbow trout, northern pike, and sockeye salmon.
In 2011, the National Parks Project made a short film about the park. The film was directed by Louise Archambault, and Graham Van Pelt, Ian D’Sa, and Mishka Stein did the music. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. went to the park in August 2013 to see Mount Kennedy, which is named after his uncle, former U.S. president John F. Kennedy.
Kluane National Park and Reserve
Kluane National Park and Reserve, which was set up in 1972 and covers 22.1 km2, is a place with mountains that haven’t been climbed, huge ice fields, clear lakes, glaciers, and amazing wildlife. Mount Logan, Canada’s highest peak, is in this park. It is in the southwest corner of the Yukon Territory, about 150 km west of Whitehorse. It is named after the largest lake in the Yukon, which is right next to the park.
Kluane National Park Yukon
The park is dominated by the world’s largest collection of ice fields and glaciers, which are all around the jagged 6050 m peak of Mount Logan. The glaciers and bare, rocky mountain peaks are surrounded by a narrow “green belt” of alpine tundra and lush valleys of coniferous and deciduous forests.
Kluane National Park Animals
This gives the wildlife in the park a place to live. Wildlife like ground squirrels, caribou, moose, grizzly and black bears, Dall sheep, and mountain goats are well-known in the park. There are about 150 kinds of birds in the park, from golden eagles to golden-crowned sparrows. Archaeologists think that people might have lived there after the last ice age.
The park is part of the Tutchone’s home land. Until land claims are settled, part of the park is set aside as a reserve. In the 1890s, explorers, prospectors, climbers, and hunters began to settle in the area around Kluane. The area became more accessible when the Alaska Highway, which runs along its eastern border, was built. In 1942, a wildlife reserve was set up in the area. The area was made a national park in 1972.
Kathleen Lake
At Kathleen Lake, you can camp, hike and climb, or go fishing (June-August). There are places to cross-country ski, fish through the ice, and camp during the winter. The towns of Haines Junction and Destruction Bay are close to each other on the Alaska Highway and offer important services.
