Brooks Range Aviation - Arctic Region

Arctic Region

The Arctic regions of Alaska can still offer the experience of what is truly the "Last Frontier". The beauty of the Arctic is still virtually untouched. Congress recognized the Brooks Range setting aside 8.4 million acres and naming it "Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve". The size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, Gates of the Arctic is the second-largest unit in our national park system, yet few Americans have even heard of it and still fewer have been there. Bettles is a metropolis of about 40 people about 25 miles outside the park's boundary.

The Arctic sun scribes a low arc, never climbing much higher than the horizon, creating a spectral glow above the valley. The Alatna, like most big rivers in the Brooks Range, flows fast but has no terrifying rapids. The absence of trails makes hiking this terrain a labor-intensive endeavor. Traveling by water makes it downright cushy. The higher you ascend, the primeval landscape of the country resembles the phantasmal scenery of an epic Tolkien novel. Soft carpets of reindeer lichen, sinister black cliffs, hanging glaciers and placid cerulean pools in which reflections of the surrounding alps shimmer like hallucinations. This northern environment is easy to damage and slow to heal. Some Arctic lichens grow less than a sixteenth of an inch annually.

For millennia, Athapaskan and Nunamiut hunter-gatherers lived and traveled throughout the Brooks Range. The Brooks Range is such a seductive place to visit, not in spite of the hardships but because of them.

The admission to this Eden requires a toll paid in sweat, pain and fear and makes its beauty all the more intoxicating. If you plan to see it on foot, by air, or drifting down an Arctic stream, we can assist you in planning your trip.

The Brooks Range is the northernmost set of mountains in Alaska. As our lands are being swallowed up, the Arctic regions of Alaska can still offer the outdoor experience of what is truly the "Last Frontier." The majestic "Brooks Range" and their rivers provide exceptional backpacking, canoeing, river rafting, kayaking, floating, wildlife viewing, photography, fishing, gold panning, and climbing.