The Bering Land Bridge National Preserve is one of the most remote protected areas in the United States, located on the Seward Peninsula. The National Preserve protects a part of the Bering Land Bridge, which connected Asia with North America more than 13,000 years ago during the Pleistocene ice age. Most of this land bridge is now underwater in the Chukchi and Bering Seas. During the glacial period, this bridge was a path for people, animals, and plants when ocean levels dropped enough to expose the land. Scientists are still discussing whether humans first traveled from Asia to the Americas across this bridge, called Beringia, or through a coastal route.
The Bering Land Bridge National Monument was created in 1978 by a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act. In 1980, the designation changed to a national preserve with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which allows local residents to hunt for food and others to hunt for recreation. The preserve includes important archaeological sites and many geological features. Recent volcanic activity has shaped the area, creating lava flows and lake-filled maars. Hot springs are a popular attraction for visitors.
Geography
The preserve is located on the northern side of the Seward Peninsula and covers 2,697,391 acres (1,091,595 hectares). It stretches along the coast from a point west of Deering near Goodhope Bay to Cape Espenberg. From there, it continues westward along the Chukchi Sea shoreline. The boundary is moved inland to avoid the village of Shishmaref and Shishmaref Inlet, then returns to the coast to include Ikpek Lagoon. A narrow path connects Ikpek Lagoon to the main part of the preserve. The interior areas extend across the Continental Divide to the Bendeleben Mountains. Near the Continental Divide, volcanic areas like Serpentine Hot Springs and lava fields between the Noxapaga River and Kuzitrin River are found. The highest point in the preserve is Mount Boyan, located on the southern border.
There are no roads leading into the preserve. Visitors can reach it by bush planes or boats during the summer and by ski planes, snowmobiles, or dog sleds in the winter. The Bering Land Bridge National Preserve includes several important geological and prehistoric sites. Serpentine Hot Springs is the most visited location in the preserve. Other notable places include Trail Creek Caves, Devil Mountain Lakes, and the Lost Jim Lagoon.
The Seward Peninsula is a leftover part of the Beringia subcontinent, which once connected Alaska and Siberia during ice ages when sea levels were low. This area was mostly untouched by glaciers during the ice age. The preserve’s land is divided into five types of regions: the northern coastal plain, rolling uplands shaped by streams, the Imuruk lava plateau, the Kuzitrin flats, and the Bendeleben Mountains.
The Seward Peninsula is mainly made of metamorphic blueschist, with deposits of sand, gravel, silt, loess, and some glacier-deposited moraines. Near Cape Espenberg, there are relict beach ridges similar to those at Cape Krusenstern. These deposits form lagoons and barrier bars along the coastal plain. Rolling uplands are found inland and to the south of the coastal plain. Serpentine Hot Springs and Trail Creek Caves are located in this area, where limestone, marble, and other minerals are found.
Volcanic activity in the interior created basalt on the Imuruk lava plateau. This activity was recent, with the Lost Jim lava flow estimated to be 1,000 to 2,000 years old, formed by about 75 vents. The largest vent is the Lost Jim Cone, which is about 75 feet (23 meters) tall. Hot springs are another volcanic feature. Serpentine Hot Springs produce water as hot as 140°F (60°C) to 170°F (77°C) and have been used for many years by local people. Granite tors, formed underground and exposed by erosion, are also volcanic remnants. The preserve contains the four largest and northernmost maar lakes in the world near Espenberg, created by eruptions that form round craters. These lakes are between 100,000 to 200,000 years old at Whitefish Maar, 50,000 years at North Killeak Maar, 40,000 years at South Killeak Maar, and 17,500 years at Devil Mountain Maar.
Ice and permafrost create features such as polygonal ice wedges and pingos.
Serpentine Hot Springs (Inupiaq: Iyat or Uunaatuq), formerly called Arctic Hot Springs, is located in the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. The springs are also known as Iyat, meaning "cooking pot" in Inupiaq. They are on the northern part of the Seward Peninsula at 65°51′N, 164°43′W. The springs are on the right bank of Hot Springs Creek, which flows into the Serpentine River, 47 miles northwest of Imuruk Lake.
History
Serpentine Hot Springs was first written about by Arthur J. Collier in a report from the U.S. Geological Survey in 1902. Collier mentioned that Charles McLennan, who traveled with a dog team and Inupiat helpers, was likely the first white person to reach the hot springs in May 1900. McLennan may have claimed a mining area nearby but left the region by September 1901. Another miner, John Sirene, built a cabin and grew a garden at the springs. Miners used the area sometimes until about 1915, when prospectors built a cabin, bathhouse, and a bathing pool that was 10 to 12 feet wide nearby. A runway may have been built in 1923, and a bunkhouse was moved to the area by Alaska Road Commission workers in 1949. In 1953, the nearby village of Shishmaref received $53,000 from the state to build a public bathhouse.
It is possible that the springs were used traditionally by Inupiat people for cooking, healing, and spiritual purposes. Anthropologists who studied the Inupiat in the area reported that local people believed the healing power at the hot springs site was very strong.
Ecology
The preserve has a lot of tundra land covered by permafrost, which is frozen ground that stays frozen for many years. The tundra has many types of small, slow-growing plants. Grasses and sedges, like cottongrass, are the most common plants in the area. Large trees cannot grow on the tundra, but small trees like Arctic willow, Alaska willow, and dwarf birch can survive there. Berry plants in the preserve include bog blueberry, crowberry, low-bush cranberry, and cloudberry or salmonberry. Lichens, which are a mix of fungi and algae, grow on rocks and include species like Cetraria, Cladina, Cladonia, Xanthoria, and Umbilicaria. Mosses and liverworts found in the preserve include Sphagnum peat mosses, Aulacomnium bog mosses, Dicranum forked mosses, Polytrichum haircap mosses, and Rhizomnium. In spring, wildflowers such as Alpine Arnica, fireweed, Kamchatka rhododendron, Labrador tea, monkshood, one-flowered cinquefoil, harebell, and alpine forget-me-not bloom in the preserve.
Caribou and reintroduced muskoxen live in the preserve. Muskoxen were brought back to the area in 1970 after they disappeared in the early 1900s. Siberian tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandus sibiricus) were introduced in 1894 and reached a high population of 600,000 in the 1930s. Their numbers later dropped to about 4,000. The Reindeer Act of 1937 stopped non-Native Americans from owning reindeer, and Native people managed the herds from that time onward. Other mammals in the preserve include walruses, polar bears, red foxes, brown bears, Arctic foxes, ribbon seals, wolverines, and beavers. Birds that nest in the preserve include sandhill cranes and yellow-billed loons.
The rivers and streams of the Seward Peninsula are home to freshwater fish and anadromous salmon species, which move between freshwater and the ocean. The main salmon species are chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, and pink salmon. Other fish, such as Dolly Varden trout and Arctic grayling, live in freshwater their entire lives. Northern pike and other fish also live in the preserve.
The preserve has a climate typical of northwestern Alaska, with long, cold winters. Coastal location helps moderate the weather, but winter temperatures can reach −65 °F (−54 °C), with typical lows between −10 °F (−23 °C) and −20 °F (−29 °C). Summer temperatures average about 50 °F (10 °C). The average yearly temperature is 21 °F (−6 °C).
In February 2011, a group of 55 muskoxen died during a storm surge in the National Reserve. The herd was crossing a bay in Kotzebue Sound when a tidal surge and flooding from a winter storm surprised them. The surge broke the ice beneath the herd, causing them to fall into icy water. Temperatures were below −30 °C, and all the muskoxen froze to death. Four of the animals had radio collars, which helped researchers find the herd. Today, muskoxen also live in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and at a local farm in Palmer that has existed since the mid-1950s.
History
The Seward Peninsula, part of a land area called Beringia, was a route for people from Asia to move into the Americas. The oldest items found there are animal bones that have been changed. These are not clear proof of people living there. The earliest certain evidence of people living in the area is from the Paleo-Arctic tradition, found in the Trail Creek Caves and dating to between 10,000 and 7,000 BC. Archaeological findings suggest no people lived on the peninsula until about 4200 BC. Items from 4000 to 2000 BC, known as the Denbigh culture of the Arctic small tool tradition, have been found at Cape Espenberg, the Trail Creek Caves, Kuzitrin Lake, and Agulaak Island. The Denbigh culture was followed by the Choris culture, which used pottery and tools made by grinding stone. Cape Espenberg, the Trail Creek Caves, and the area near Lopp Lagoon were occupied during this time. This was followed by the Ipuitak culture, which lasted from about 1900 BC to 1000 BC, and was found at many of the same places.
The Northern Maritime tradition included the Birnirk, Western Thule, and Kotzebue Period cultures. These cultures existed from 600 AD until the early 1800s, when European people arrived and changed local lifestyles. Activities like the fur trade, whaling, and missionary work changed the local economy. Later, in the late 1800s, people looking for gold came to the southern part of the Seward Peninsula. These people spread across the peninsula, and hydraulic mining was done in the Pinnel River. More outsiders arrived during World War II because Alaska was important in the Pacific war.
Bering Land Bridge National Monument was created on December 1, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter using the Antiquities Act. Carter did this after a law called the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) was delayed in Congress. In 1980, ANILCA was passed and signed into law by Carter on December 2, 1980, changing the monument into a national preserve. The preserve’s main office is in the Sitnasuak Building in Nome.