Mollie Beattie Wilderness

At 8 million acres, the Mollie Beattie Wilderness is second only to the Wrangell-St. Elias Wilderness in size. Mollie Beattie contains more than 40% of the land of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The property is centered around the eastern Brooks Range, an area of arctic, subarctic and alpine ecosystems. The highest mountains in the Brooks Range (around 9,000') are here.

North of the mountains is a rolling tundra plain, dotted with multitudes of freshwater lakes and cut by thousands of meandering streams. To the south are wide, hardwood and conifer-covered valleys. Most of the Brooks Range itself is treeless.

The wildlife here is abundant, by Arctic standards. You'll find moose, brown bear, gray wolf, wolverine, and red fox everywhere. To the north are where the Arctic fox, reindeer and muskox hang out. In the forests are black bear, lynx, porcupine, beaver, river otter and coyote. On the northern ice are walrus, seals and polar bears. In the high mountains are Dall sheep and marmots. The 110,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd also hang out in the southern portions of the wilderness in winter. The flowing waters run thick with rainbow trout, Dolly Varden trout, Arctic grayling and salmon (in season). If you come in the summer to check out the millions of migratory birds who fly in to nest and rear their young, remember to bring your industrial strength bug repellent: it's all those bugs in the air that the birds came to feed on.

The well-known conservationist Mollie Beattie was also the first woman director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service.