National Park Service Bering Land Bridge U.S. Department of the Interior Offcial Visitor’s Guide Bering Land Bridge National Preserve Superintendent’s Welcome Dear Friends, Welcome to the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, a little known park unit with a huge story! The preserve, which is just smaller than the state of Connecticut, lies at the heart of continental crossroads that profoundly infuenced the A Bridge to the Past, distribution of life in the Western Hemisphere. Present & Future The park headquarters are in Nome, a rural community of 3,600 residents, which is known for its COMPRISED OF 2.7 MILLION acres on the Seward Peninsula in The preserve protects a signifcant gold rush history, Alaska Native northwest Alaska, Bering Land expanse of land remaining from cultures, and as the end of the Bridge (BELA) is one of the the prehistoric “land bridge,” also famous Iditarod sled dog race. The nation’s most remote national known as Beringia, which spanned preserve is a place where the rich park units. Because of this, from modern-day Asia to North variety of wildlife, fsh, and plants it ofers unparalleled America over 12,000 years have sustained the indigenous opportunities to not ago. The bridge was up people of the region for thousands only experience some to 1,000 miles wide, and of years, and where subsistence is of America’s most was a land mass that essential to the economic, cultural, isolated wildlands, allowed for the exchange and social existence of the region’s but also the rich of human, fora, and people. The villages of Shishmaref, heritage of Alaskan fauna populations Wales and Deering are located right Native cultures, past between continents. As outside the preserve boundary; and present. Visitors the climate warmed at the residents consider the preserve part to the preserve will fnd end of the last ice age, sea of their backyard. themselves in the midst of levels rose and the land mass natural hot springs, ancient was closed of, separating the The story of Beringia and that lava fows, and the largest continents. Today, evidence of ice of the park is near and dear to maar lakes in the world in a land age species and prehistoric human my heart, not only because my still used by local residents in the settlements can be found in the ancestors crossed this land bridge, same way their ancestors have used preserve. but also because my grandmother it for generations. was originally from Russia, and I There are no roads into have relatives who still live in the Bering Land Bridge was Bering Land Bridge, so travel Chukotka region. I am honored established as a National Preserve opportunities can be limited. to be the superintendent of a park on December 2, 1980. This The most common access is by that has played a unique role in the designation enables the land snowmobile, small airplane, boat, history of the Americas. I encourage to be federally protected, but or on foot. With a growing body of you to browse our website, also utilized for public hunting, information about North American utilize this visitor guide, and to gathering, trapping, fshing, and natural history and indigenous contact us for more information. subsistence use. With a coastline cultures, the preserve ofers Igamsiqanaghhalek- Thank you very just 55 miles from Siberia, it is the valuable opportunities for visitors much! westernmost national park unit in to understand and explore the vast the continental United States. wildlands of northwest Alaska. Jeanette Koelsch Superintendent, Bering Land Bridge 1 EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICATM National Preserve 2 Navigate Backcountry Safety & Getting There Subsistence 3 6 Responsibilities 16 4 Prehistory 7 Bear Safety 18 Youth Perspectives 5 Plants and Wildlife 11 Reindeer Herding 19 More Information Maar 13 Lakes 17 Shishmaref 10 Chukchi Sea 8-9 Coast Serpentine Hot Springs 16 Imuruk Wales 14 Lake Imuruk 15 Lava Beds Kuzitrin 12 Lake Nome Park Headquarters 19 Visitor Center Getting Around 3 A herd of reindeer crosses the beach in front of a bush plane The list below provides the contact information for commercial use operators, which offer aircraft transportation services into Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. Commercial Use Operators AIR TAXI Air Juneau, Inc. P O B o x 1 8 4 6 Kenai A K 9 9 6 1 1 9 0 7 - 2 5 2 - 7 8 8 8 [email protected] w w w .huntandfshalaska.net Fox Aircrafts, LLC 6 0 4 9 H a r t Wasilla A K 9 9 6 5 4 9 0 7- 3 0 1- 2 7 7 0 [email protected] Lake Loop www.foxaircraft.com Golden Eagle P O B o x 6 9 2 Delta A K 9 9 7 3 7 9 0 7 - 3 8 8 - 2 2 2 5 [email protected] Outftters, Inc. Junction w w w .alaskawildernessexpeditions.com Arctic Backcountry P O B o x 9 2 4 Kotzebue A K 9 9 7 5 2 9 0 7 - 4 4 2 - 3 2 0 0 [email protected] Flying, LLC w w w .fyera.com Northwestern P O B o x 1 0 1 0 Kotzebue A K 9 9 7 5 2 9 0 7 - 4 4 2 - 3 5 2 5 [email protected] Aviation, Inc. w w w .alaskaonyourown.com Arctic Wild PO Box 80562 Fairbanks AK 99708 907-479-8203 [email protected] www.arcticwild.com BIG GAME TRANSPORT Air Juneau, Inc. P O B o x 1 8 4 6 Kenai A K 9 9 6 1 1 9 0 7 - 2 5 2 - 7 8 8 8 [email protected] w w w .huntandfshalaska.net Golden Eagle P O B o x 6 9 2 Delta A K 9 9 7 3 7 9 0 7 - 3 8 8 - 2 2 2 5 [email protected] Outftters, Inc. Junction w w w .alaskawildernessexpeditions.com Northwestern P O B o x 1 0 1 0 Kotzebue A K 9 9 7 5 2 9 0 7 - 4 4 2 - 3 5 2 5 [email protected] Aviation, Inc. w w w .alaskaonyourown.com BIG GAME GUIDES Wittrock Outfters PO Box Fairbanks AK 99706 907-322-9841 [email protected] 61210 http://www.wittrockoutftters.com/ 4 Prehistory In BriefWHAT MAY APPEAR TODAY TO BE AN immense landscape of fat tundra, lava felds, rolling mountains, oxbow rivers, and shallow lakes, was once the sole terrestrial passage between Asia and the Americas. With seawater frozen up into colossal glaciers, the ocean foor was exposed for thousands of years, long enough for plants, animals, and even humans to move back and forth between the continents. Mammoth vertebra The Last Ice Age found in 2012 This time period is also known as small herd was brought over from climate change is one known the Pleistocene epoch, which lasted Greenland to Nunivak Island in factor. As the climate warmed, from about 2 million to 10,000 southwestern Alaska in the 19 30s, glaciers melted and the sea level years ago. It was a time of extreme and in the 19 70s their descendents rose, cutting of access to Asia and climatic change, where prehistoric were reintroduced to the Seward changing the available resources hippopotamuses lived in a Peninsula. Today the population that so many species relied on for subtropical England, and humans has expanded its range into Bering survival. Although some human crossed the Bering Land Bridge Land Bridge National Preserve. populations were migrating via alongside now-extinct saber- boat along the coast by then, in toothed cats and American lions. It is believed there was no single many ways the two worlds were cause for the ultimate extinction of severed. Other ice age mammals that are so many ice age species, but natural known to have roamed this land Today, climate change continues include woolly mammoths, giant to cause sea levels to rise, further short-faced bears, and steppe submerging the ancient land bison. From cave art and fossil bridge. As the global temperature remains, we know that early warms, sea ice has a harder time humans observed and interacted forming each season and staying with these creatures. Muskox and frozen, so it melts into the oceans, caribou were around during this which causes a domino efect (or time period as well. Muskox did go feedback loop) of continuous locally extinct in some areas, but melting and warming. they survived in other places. A The yellow area indicates the extent of the land mass that made up the 1,000 mile wide Bering Land Bridge Plants and Wildlife 5 Wild Iris Muskox Northern Pintails Plants Far from the barren landscape Wildlife it might appear to be, in Due to its vast nature, it is summertime the tundra is Birds At the crossroads of the Asiatic- possible to stay for days out vibrant with color and plant North American Flyway, over in the backcountry of Bering life, home to over 300 species 170 bird species are known to Land Bridge National Preserve of vascular plants, including migrate up to 20,000 miles every and never see a large mammal, wildfowers, berries, small year to spend the summer in but that doesn’t mean they trees, and shrubs. There are Bering Land Bridge. Visitors aren’t out there. Brown bears, also several hundred more can expect to see a wide muskox, fox, caribou, moose, mosses, fungi, and lichens that variety of raptors, songbirds, wolves, and wolverines all make survive year round. Check out shorebirds, and seabirds as their homes in the preserve, as the plants page on our website well as Asiatic species, sandhill well as a wide variety of other for more info about common cranes, ptarmigan, and tundra small mammals, insects, and species you’ll fnd in Bering swans nesting in the preserve.