Homelands and Public Lands
National Wildlife Refuges and the Legacy of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA)
For thousands of years, Alaska's Indigenous peoples have lived from the lands, hunting, fishing, and gathering wild foods and materials, their cultures reflecting the connection to and appreciation of all the gifts provided by the lands and waters. As the elders say, "our ancestors' bones are in the soil." Home to Indigenous people for at least 15,000 years as evidenced by archaeologists, with theories of 50,000 years of occupancy, the spaces existing within and beyond refuge boundaries are sacred.
“It’s not just a matter of sustenance — it’s a spiritual connection, one that defines the health and well-being of our people,” said Orville Lind, the Native Liaison in the Office of Subsistence Management for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “When we harvest food from Mother Nature, provided by our creator, we are honored by it.”
There are 20 different Indigenous cultural groups and languages spoken in Alaska. The Indigenous languages themselves hold discreet intelligence of the places managed by the refuge system. For example, the Iñupiat word "natiġvik" means snow drifting along the ground (usually blowing not above the knee). And there are hundreds of thousands of words in Indigenous Alaska languages that describe wildlife, habitat, waterways, and interactions with the environment.
Click on the colored areas of the map below to explore the cultural groups of Alaska's Indigenous peoples.
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On December 2, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the sweeping Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). The Act established 100 million acres of public lands, and secured a priority for subsistence ways of life for Alaska’s rural residents, it consolidated and added land to seven previously established refuges, and established nine new refuges, including two former monuments. These sixteen refuges are wild places with diverse habitats that support the fish and wildlife so important to Alaskans, especially those living in rural areas of the state whose existence depends on them.
Indigenous peoples continue to live from the lands (a subsistence way of life) as do many non-Natives living in Alaska's rural communities. With ANILCA, Congress recognized that hunting and fishing pressure would increase as access to remote areas improved and the state's population grew, and they prioritized the subsistence harvest of fish and wildlife on federal public lands over other uses. Rural Alaska residents hunt, fish, and gather wild foods unlike anywhere else in the United States.
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What led to ANILCA
Alaska became a state in 1959. In order for the new state to move forward with resource development and infrastructure projects, like the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, aboriginal land claims needed to be addressed. Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971, in part to resolve land claims. The Act extinguished aboriginal hunting and fishing with no provisions for protecting the subsistence way of life necessary for existence.
Aerial view of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The pipeline was built to carry oil from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska. Photo: BLM
At the passage of ANCSA, Congress set the expectation that the State of Alaska and the Secretary of Interior would work together to protect Alaska Native hunting and fishing needs and requirements. Congress also directed the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw up to 80 million acres of unreserved land that would be suitable for addition to or creation of units of national wildlife refuges, parks, forests, wilderness units, and scenic rivers. These expectations set the stage for ANILCA.
Alaska's National Wildlife Refuges and Subsistence
From first establishment at the turn of the twentieth century, national wildlife refuges have sought to conserve habitat and wildlife for current and future generations. Alaska holds some of the oldest refuges in the system, dating back to the beginning of a national vision to ensure that wildlife continue to thrive and flourish. With the passage of ANILCA, a new era began: the addition of several new refuges and expanded direction for management, including subsistence. Explore the map below and learn about the refuges and the Indigenous peoples who live on and from these lands.
Alaska Maritime
Alaska Peninsula
Arctic
Innoko
Becharof
Izembek
Kanuti
Kenai
Kodiak
Koyukuk
Nowitna
Selawik
Tetlin
Togiak
Yukon Delta
Yukon Flats
Alaska Maritime
ANILCA combined 11 previously established refuges (totaling about 3 million acres) with 1.9 million acres of additional lands to form the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.
The refuge's 3.4 million acres is on the traditional lands of the Alutiiq/Sugpiak, Unangam Tanangin, Yup’ik/Cup’ik, Iñupiat, Dena'ina, Tlingit, Haida, and Eyak peoples and includes the spectacular volcanic islands of the Aleutian chain, the seabird cliffs of the remote Pribilofs, and icebound lands washed by the Chukchi Sea, providing essential habitat for some 40 million seabirds, representing more than 30 species.
The refuge has provided a bounty of marine delicacies and useful materials to those living from these coastal lands. With skills, physical endurance, and traditional knowledge passed down through many generations, Native peoples were able to prosper when wildlife was plentiful and to survive through leaner times. Each animal was and still is important to them.
Alaska Peninsula
ANILCA established the 3.7 million acre Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is on the traditional lands of the Alutiiq and Unangam Tananginis peoples and has breathtakingly dramatic landscape made up of active volcanoes, towering mountain peaks, rolling tundra and rugged, wave-battered coastlines.
Like other coastal refuges, salmon provide the principal "nutrient engine" for Alaska Peninsula, supporting the species that prey upon them and enriching the rivers and surrounding lands after they spawn and die. For the people who live from these lands, salmon provide and important source of food and income.
Arctic
ANILCA redesignated the Arctic National Wildlife Range, which was established in 1960, as part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and more than doubled its size. With 9.3 million acres, the refuge includes Arctic coast and tundra plain, glacier-capped peaks of the Brooks Range, and spruce and birch boreal forests of the Yukon River basin.
Indigenous peoples continue many of their traditional ways of life today as they have for generations. Iñupiat people live along the northern coast and hunt seals and whales, fish from barrier islands and along freshwater rivers, catch birds throughout the spring and summer, and travel inland to hunt caribou, wolves, and Dall sheep. The Gwich’in people live to the south. Traditionally, they traveled widely each year in search of food. Today, they establish summer fishing camps along rivers, catch waterfowl and other birds, snare small game, and hunt caribou.
Innoko
The 4.6 million acre Innoko National Wildlife Refuge was established by ANILCA and is on the traditional lands of the Koyukon, Holikachuk, Deg Xinag, and Upper Kuskokwim peoples.
The refuge has a northern unit (Kaiyah Flats, 751,000 acres) and a southern unit (3.85 million acres) and has vast areas of wetlands that are crucial for waterfowl nesting, resting, staging, and molting, habitat for raptor populations and moose.
Becharof
Established by ANILCA, Becharof National Wildlife Refuge's 1,157,000 is on the traditional lands of the Sugpiaq and Yupik peoples. It boasts the largest lake in the National Wildlife Refuge System. At approximately 300,000 acres, Becharof Lake nurtures one of Bristol Bay’s largest sockeye salmon runs, part of the foundation for the regional economy.
The Refuge includes an active volcano, unusual geological features, historically significant landmarks, and a federally designated Wilderness.
Izembek
With passage of the ANILCA, lands that had been set aside in 1960 by a public land order as part of the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge were redesignated as the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge with 300,000 acres designated as the Izembek Wilderness Area. Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is on the traditional lands of the Unangax people.
At the heart of the Refuge is the 150-square mile Izembek Lagoon, one of the world's largest beds of eelgrass and the resting area for hundreds of thousands of waterfowl, including Taverner's Canada goose, emperor goose and nearly the entire population of Pacific black brant, inhabit the lagoon each fall. Steller's eiders also molt, rest, and feed at Izembek lagoon.
Kanuti
ANILCA established this 1.637 million acre refuge. About the size of the state of Delaware, the Kanuti Refuge straddles the Arctic Circle, with approximately a third of the Refuge above the Circle and two-thirds below it. The refuge is a prime example of Alaska's boreal ecosystem, the forests of which are dominated by black and white spruce with paper birch, aspen and poplar trees occurring less commonly.
The Kanuti Refuge is on the traditional lands of the Koyukon and Kobuk Nunamiut peoples, who have a long history of harvesting the region's fish, wildlife and plants for subsistence purposes and they continue to hunt, fish, trap, pick berries, gather birch bark, and cut house logs on the refuge.
Kenai
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge was originally established in 1941 as the Kenai National Moose Range. ANILCA broadened the Refuge’s purpose to include conserving all of its fish, wildlife and habitats in their natural diversity, fulfilling international treaty obligations, protecting water quality and quantity, and providing opportunities for scientific research, environmental education and interpretation, land management training and outdoor recreation.
This nearly 2-million acre refuge is on the traditional lands of the Dena'ina, Alutiiq and Sugpiaq peoples. The refuge is home to over 200 species of fish and wildlife, including moose, brown and black bears, wolves, lynx, bald eagles, trumpeter swans and salmon. More than one hundred migratory bird species use refuge wetlands, tundra and forests during spring and fall migrations.
Kodiak
Originally established by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 to protect brown bears and their habitat on Kodiak and Uganik islands, ANILCA added portions of Afognak Island and all of Ban Island to Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge.
This 1.9 million acre refuge sustains both people and wildlife, and includes a dense population of bears and abundant salmon bearing streams. Kodiak Refuge is on the traditional lands of the Sugpiaq people with a rich tradition of living from the lands and the sea.
Koyukuk
ANILCA established the 3.5 million acre Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge for the conservation of waterfowl, moose, caribou, and other northern mammals. The refuge is a mosaic of boreal forest, tundra, and wetlands. Refuge streams and lakes sustain large fish populations including salmon that migrate up the waters of the Yukon river and the tributary Koyukuk River.
The refuge is on the traditional lands of Koyukon and Iñupiat peoples. Elders from communities in and near the refuge have a vast and valuable knowledge of the area's natural history. They are among the last generation who grew up living off the land completely by hunting, fishing, trapping and gathering.
Nowitna
Established by ANILCA, the more than 2-million acre Nowitna Refuge encompases river valley, wetlands, forest and tundra. The Nowitna River winds across the refuge and forms a broad floodplain that comes alive each spring with the arrival of thousands of migratory songbirds and waterfowl.
The refuge is on the traditional lands of the Koyukon, Tanana, Upper Kuskokwim, and Holikachuk peoples. Local knowledge about past changes in animal abundance and habitat conditions are extremely valuable because wildlife studies were very limited before the refuges were established.
Selawik
Established by ANILCA, the Selawik Refuge is a special place of extreme climate, free-flowing rivers, and abundant wildlife. Here where the boreal forest of Interior Alaska meets the arctic tundra, thousands of waterfowl, shorebirds, fish, insects and other creatures rest, breed and feed in the vast wetlands complex that is the heart of the refuge. Over two million acres of land make up the refuge, which straddles the Arctic Circle.
This Refuge is on the traditional lands of the Iñupiat people, where local people hunt, fish and gather as their ancestors have done for thousands of years. "Siilvik" is the Inupiaq name for Selawik, meaning "place of sheefish." One of two sheefish spawning areas in the region is in the upper Selawik River.
Tetlin
For countless generations, the Upper Tanana Valley at the east central edge of Alaska has served as a natural travel corridor for wildlife and people. Established by ANILCA, the 682,604 acre refuge includes snowcapped mountains, glacier-fed rivers, forests, treeless tundra, and an abundance of wetlands that welcome migratory birds each spring.
This refuge is on the traditional lands of the Upper Tanana people and culture is passed on through the subsistence way of life, traditional potlatch celebrations, and language mentors.
Togiak
ANILCA expanded the 265,000 acre Cape Newenham Refuge (created in 1969) to the 4.7 million acre Togiak National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge includes the mountain crags and broad glacial valleys of the Ahklun Mountains and deep lakes, coastal lagoons, and sea cliffs. Free flowing river systems support fisheries important to people and wildlife, and coastal areas sustain seabird colonies and marine mammal haulouts.
The refuge is on the traditional lands of the Yup’ik people. Salmon, smelt, and other fish are subsistence staples, along with moose and caribou, waterfowl, wild berries, and marine mammal meat and oil.
Yukon Delta
ANILCA brought together and expanded multiple refuges into the second largest refuge in the system: over 19.5 million acres of innumerable lakes and ponds, with marshland and tundra that supports one of the largest populations of water birds in the world. Alaska’s two largest rivers, the Yukon and the Kuskokwim, and their tributaries, flow through the refuge, creating hundreds of miles of spawning and rearing habitat for 44 species of fish (including 5 species of Pacific salmon). This region which was once part of the landmass called Beringia, or Bering Land Bridge, and has been occupied for thousands of years. Yup’ik and Cup’ik people still call this place home, living in villages and practicing the subsistence way of life throughout the refuge.
Yukon Flats
Yukon Flats National Wildlife Monument, created in 1978 in response to research that showed the national significance of the area for breeding waterfowl, officially expanded and became an 11.1 million acre refuge in 1980 through ANILCA. The Yukon River flows through refuge lands, sculpting the vast floodplain of lakes, ponds, and streams important to waterfowl from all four North American Flyways.
This refuge is on the traditional lands of the Gwich'in people. Seven villages lie within the refuge or adjacent to its boundary. Local residents have a long history of harvesting the region's natural resources for subsistence and follow patterns of harvest that reflect the seasonal cycle of resources to hunt, fish, trap, pick berries, and cut house logs on the refuge.
