In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). This act created additional acreage, the Preserve, to bring the total acreage to 6.2 million acres.
WHAT DID ANILCA DO?
- Protect access for traditional activities, including hunting, fishing, trapping, camping and wildlife viewing
- Promote state Constitutionally-guaranteed access to and along state waterways
- Encourage appropriate tourism activities that provide visitor services and benefit local economies
- Protect access opportunities for resource development on inholdings and adjacent non-federal lands
- Facilitate coordination when state and federal agency jurisdictions overlap.
- Kantishna District — The Kantishna district is an inholding of private land within Denali National Park where gold miners staked claims before the park was created. The lodge operators who later obtained this land gained something more valuable than gold: the opportunity to bring visitors to the far end of the park from the entrance, as near as a vehicle can get to Mount McKinley. Hosts drive visitors to Kantishna in private buses or vans over the 89-mile park road.
