Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley National Parks

The two northernmost parks in Alaska, Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley, are only accessible by bush plane. First it requires getting to the Inuit village of Kotzebue and it too is only accesible by plane or boat. It has 3,000 residents, 95%+ of which are natives from the Qikiqtagrunjmiut tribe (and no I can't come close to pronouncing it correctly either). They are some of the most friendly people you might ever meet here in Alaska, still living in their traditional ways of mainly subsistence off the land and sea. Their main sources of food are Beluga whales, seals and caribou along with other small game. While walking around the visitor center this native woman came up to me chatting away and super excited having just come from their big spring ceremony where everyone butchers and splits up their first harvest/catch from the spring. She kept saying "I smell like this because I just came from butchering the meat", like literally 30 minutes ago. They equally divide everything no matter how much you had or didn't have to contribute and she said they all got enough to sustain themselves well into the next winter.

The landing site in Gates was still too soft to land due to the late melt. We were able to land though on the sand dunes in Kobuk Valley.

Our landing site on the sand dunes in the middle of Kobuk Valley.

A sweeping view of the dunes. This is actually above the Arctic Circle if you can believe that!

Part of the Kobuk Valley river. The trees grow in such definitive lines due to the way the river channels change over time. Although they may look like it, they are not planted or farmed here in the middle of nowhere;-)

Another part of the Kobuk Valley.

The Brooks Range in Gates of the Arctic.

A glacial river bed in Gates of the Arctic.

More Gates of the Arctic.

And a little more from Gates of the Arctic.

The remote village of Kotzebue up on the Bering Sea. 3,000 people in total and 95%+ of them are native Inuits from the Qikiqtagrunjmiut tribe. 

That's the Bering Ocean on the right and Russia is about 320 miles due east of here.

Some of the last bits of the winter sea ice ice floating by Kotzebue. The sound is the ice pieces grinding against each other and breaking into crystals as it gets pushed along by the current. By the end of the day it was entirely all gone.