Photograph by Nick Jans/Photo Library Established: December 2,
1980 Size: 1,750,000 acres "Now we were alone between fringes of
spruce by a clear stream where tundra went up the sides of
mountains," wrote John McPhee in Coming into the Country. The
Kobuk Valley, said McPhee, "was, in all likelihood, the most
isolated wilderness I would ever see." Located entirely above
the Arctic Circle, Kobuk Valley has fewer tourist visits than
any other national park. Float a river here in late August and
the only other humans you're likely to encounter are Inupiat
hunting the caribou that migrate through each year. Thirteen
thousand years ago, when continental glaciers covered much of
North America and a land bridge connected Alaska and Asia, Kobuk
Valley was an ice-free refuge with grassy tundra similar to that
found in Siberia today. Bison, mastodons, and mammoths roamed
the valley, along with the humans who hunted them. Since then,
the climate has shifted, and sea level has risen to flood the
land bridge; many of the e