Nancy Bandley who has contributed many park articles about Alaska on this website in the past, has sent me some great information about the National Park Service's newest park unit which will be open to the public beginning on June 1st. You can find more info about the new Sand Creek Massacre National Historic site on nps.gov/sand and on its ...

Noatak National Preserve is the last of the 5 Western Arctic Parklands, an area which also includes Gates of the Arctic National Park, Kobuk Valley, Cape Krusenstern and Bering Land Bridge. It was established as a National Monument in 1978, and encompasses 10,273 square miles (6.5 million acres). It quickly became a National Preserve in 1980 because it is one ...

As the days grow shorter here in the lower 48, I often wonder what life is like above the Arctic Circle when someday very soon the amount of sunshine measured in minutes becomes Zero. Of course, the opposite is true in the summer when sunlight measures 24 hours. But those long dark days in Kobuk Valley must transform an already ...

Another great travel article from Nancy Bandley today, this time to Gates of the Arctic, one of the most massive parkslands in all of America. If you are wanting to know a little more about this park after reading this piece, I found this "radio expedition" to the park from National Public Radio recorded a couple years ago that may ...

We continue with Nancy's Alaska Park travels today at Cape Krusenstern National Monument. I must admit, this is the first time I've really even heard of Cape Krusenstern. After you've read Nancy's article, swing over to the official park website for a welcome message from the superintendent. The NPS site also has a link to find an air taxi to ...

Nancy Bandley continues her great series of travel adventures in our national parks of Alaska. Today we're at the Bering Land Bridge located near the northwest corner of the state. As with most of Nancy's articles, after having read about these places, I am now wanting to see them some day with my own eyes. Land bridges are not unique; ...

I know I had promised that Nancy Bandley would tour Denali today, but that was before I knew she had more great Alaska parks to cover first! If you are new to Park Remark, Nancy has been writing a continuing series of articles we've been calling 'So you want to go to Alaska?' Nancy is the current president of the ...

Nancy Bandley is back! She was on the road for awhile, collecting more National Park Passport Stamps and participating in the annual Park Stampers Convention -- which was held this year at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan. Now that she's back at her keyboard, she has submitted part 7 of her series "So you want to go ...

Located near the tiny town of Eagle, Alaska [map], Nancy Bandley's Alaskan adventure continues far inland to the Yukon Charlie Rivers National Preserve. Continuing in an easterly direction (from last week's journey to Wrangell - St. Elias), the first park inside Alaska after Canada on the Trans Alaskan Highway is Yukon Charley Rivers. It is made of of two rivers, ...

The absolute largest of our national parks, at over 13.5 million acres, is Wrangell - St. Elias. To give you an idea of how very large this park is, try to imagine fitting all the northeastern states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts into one park, and that would be Wrangell-St Elias. The meeting of the Chugach, Wrangell and ...

This is part 4 of Nancy Bandley's Alaska Parks journey. This week the journey transitions from the water world of Cruise Ships towards a journey that can be experienced (mostly) from land. One of the least visited ( less than 300,000 last year ) , but easiest to get to of our National Parks is Kenai Fjords. It is located ...

Nancy's series of articles about National Park travel in Alaska continues with part 3 of the water route, docking today in Juneau. Nancy had planned this article weeks ago, so it was interesting for me to read earlier this week a news article from the Juneau Empire titled "Glacier melt rate a surprise: Ice in Southeast vanishing twice as fast ...

This is part 2 of a multi-part series of articles about travel among the parklands of Alaska written by Nancy Bandley. We got as far as Southeast Alaska last time and through one port, Skagway, so this time we will take up another one, Ketchikan. Billed as Alaska's First City, it is about 500 miles from Seattle. And the closest ...

If you'd like to travel to Alaska, you first have to decide on whether you'd like to see Southeast Alaska or what I call Alaska Proper. Southeast Alaska is a lot like British Columbia, except it is the United States. It has the same scenery, animals, and weather. Mostly it's done by cruise ship, either out of Seattle or Vancouver. ...

Last week Park Remark had a nice piece written by Nancy Bandley about the history of the Park Passport program. As soon as Nancy submitted the piece to me, she immediately had a great idea for a series of articles about traveling to parks in Alaska. I thought the idea was a lot of fun. And so, starting today and ...

Twenty years ago Eastern National, the largest cooperating association within Park Service, introduced not only a new item to their bookshelves but also a collecting phenomenon that has grown larger than I'm sure anyone ever predicted. The product is known plainly as the "Passport To Your National Parks". These little blue books, designed to mimic the look of an actual ...