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Kobuk National Park is valley enclosed by the Baird and Waring mountains. Major natural features that the park protects include the central sections of the Kobuk River, the 25-square-mile Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, and the Little Kobuk and Hunt River dunes. Additional dunes that have been stabilized by vegetation now cover much of the southern portion of the Kobuk Valley.
River bluffs, composed of sand standing as much as 150 feet high, hold permafrost ice wedges and the fossils of ice mammals.
Up to 1,500 feet wide, the placid Kobuk River falls a mere 2 to 3 inches per mile.
The Onion Portage site, on the Kobuk River in the eastern side of the park, is one of the most important archeological sites in arctic America. It has more than 70 distinct stratified cultural layers that document a progression of human camps spanning about 12,500 years.
Nearby Kotzebue is Alaska's largest Eskimo community with more than 3,000 residents.
Kobuk Valley is the primary nesting ground for more than 100 species of birds. It is also the home to wolves, bears, wolverines, weasels, lemmings, hawks as well as others.
Kobuk valley provides important fall and winter range for the western arctic caribou herd. Bands of bulls and cows may be seen here from late August through October as they migrate across the Kobuk River on their extensive annual migrations. Caribou migrations are one of the wonders of the subarctic and arctic realms. Known as "nomads of the north," caribou have lived in most of Alaska except its southeastern panhandle. In their yearly wandering, caribou of the western arctic herd range over 140,000 square miles, including the entire three parks, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Kobuk National Park, and Noatak National Preserve, that make up the Northwest Alaska Areas. The herd - North America's largest - is more than 300,000 at this writing.
Visitors can take a flightseeing tour, float down the rivers on motorboats, canoes or kayaks, fish or hike backcountry, as well as wildlife watching, birding or just enjoy solitude in a field of wildflowers.
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