Wildlands

Geography

The Kenai Peninsula in southcentral Alaska is geologically a relatively "young" or recently exposed area. Ice and glaciers, which once covered the entire peninsula, melted from most of the peninsula only 10,000-14,000 years ago. The remnant of this once widespread ice sheet can still be observed today as the Harding Ice Field at high elevation in the eastern Kenai Mountains of the peninsula. At its greatest depth in the center, the Harding Ice Field is thousands of feet thick.

As one leaves the ice and snow of the Harding Ice Field and descends to lower elevations, the first major habitats encountered are the treeless alpine and subalpine zones. These open, rocky, and windy habitats are the home of mountain goats, Dall sheep, caribou, wolverine, marmots, and ptarmigan. Just below the more shrubby subalpine habitat one begins to encounter trees of the boreal forest. Timberline averages about 1,800 feet above sea level on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.

Most of the lower elevations on the Kenai Peninsula and Kenai National Wildlife Refuge are covered by boreal forest and numerous lakes. The largest lake on the Kenai Peninsula is Tustumena Lake at nearly 74,000 acres. Boreal forests are the home of moose, wolves, black and brown bears, lynx, snowshoe hares and numerous species of neotropical birds such as olive-sided flycatchers, myrtle warblers and ruby-crowned kinglets.

Continuing down to lowest elevation at sea level, the refuge includes the last remaining, pristine major salt water estuary - the Chickaloon River Flats - on the Kenai Peninsula. It provides a major migratory staging area for thousands of shorebirds and waterfowl in the spring and fall and nesting habitat for waterfowl and shorebirds in the summer. The area is also used as a haul-out area by harbor seals and is used by beluga whales. Thousands of salmon migrate up the Chickaloon River system each year to spawn.

Last updated: September 11, 2008