Katmai National Park and Preserve

A national park and preserve in southwest Alaska covering 4,093,077 acres – an area between the land areas of Connecticut and New Jersey – on the Alaska Peninsula across from Kodiak Island, with headquarters at King Salmon about 290 miles southwest of Anchorage. It is named for Mount Katmai, its centerpiece stratovolcano, and is known for the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and for its brown bears. The area was first protected as a national monument in 1918 to preserve the ground around the major 1912 eruption of Novarupta, which laid down that valley as a 40-square-mile pyroclastic flow between 100 and 700 feet deep. The park holds as many as 18 volcanoes.