Kenai Fjords National Park

How to Get to Kenai Fjords National Park:

Kenai Fjords National Park is located south and west of Seward and 130 miles south of Anchorage via the Seward Highway. The Alaska Marine Highway (ferry) System connects Seward with Homer and Seldovia via Kodiak, providing service to Valdez and Cordova. Bus services are available between Anchorage and Seward. The Alaska Railroad serves Seward from Anchorage during the summer months.

Recommended Scenic Routes Near Kenai Fjords National Park:

Connecting Anchorage to Seward, the 127-mile Seward Highway borders Turnagain Arm and Chugach State Park. From Girdwood to Seward, it passes through Chugach National Forest offering dramatic views of wild Alaska. The diversity of landscape and wildlife found along the route is the hallmark of the highway corridor.

Park Size:

669,983 acres.

Description:

The park includes one of the four major ice caps in the United States, the 300-square-mile Harding Icefield, and coastal fjords. Here a rich, varied rain forest is home to tens of thousands of breeding birds and adjoining marine waters support a multitude of sea lions, sea otters, and seals.

Facilities:

Camping sites, visitor center, ranger station, backcountry public use cabins.

Things to Do:

Interpretive talks, exhibits, and videos are offered at the visitor center and Exit Glacier Nature Center. Authorized commercial guides provide camping, fishing and kayaking services. Air charters fly over the coast for flight seeing and access to the fjords. Boat tours and charters are available from Seward. In summer, boat tours ply the coast, observing calving glaciers, sea birds, and marine mammals. Boat charters offer overnight fjord trips and fishing trips to the fjords and Resurrection Bay (saltwater fish include halibut, lingcod cod, and a variety of rock fish; freshwater fish include Dolly Varden and silver, red, chum and pink salmon).

Operating Hours:

The visitor center in Seward offers information, videos, maps, publications and exhibits. It is open daily from mid-April through September and weekdays in October. The Exit Glacier Nature Center is open daily in the summer months. It offers exhibits and information about the glacier and the Harding Icefield, interpretive programs and talks.

History:

Proclaimed Kenai Fjords National Monument on December 1, 1978; established as a national park on December 2, 1980.

Contact Kenai Fjords National Park:

Kenai Fjords National Park
National Park Service
PO Box 1727
Seward, AK 99664
907-224-7500