Kobuk River

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The Kobuk River is a river, approximately 347 mi (555 km) long, in the Arctic region of northwestern Alaska in the United States. It drains a large area on the southern side of the Brooks Range, flowing westward into the Kotzebue Sound on the Arctic Ocean. Its upper reaches in the Brooks Range provide spectacular canyons and spruce forests, while its lower valley provides extensive caribou habitat amidst a region of Arctic villages.

[edit] Description

It issues from Walker Lake in the Endicott Mountains, in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, just north of the Arctic Circle near 67°05′N 154°15′W. It flows briefly south, descending from the mountains through two spectacular canyons (Upper and Lower Kobuk Canyon), then flows generally west along the southwern flank of the western Brooks Range in a broad wetlands valley. In the valley it passes a connected community of inland Eskimo villages, including Kobuk, Shungnak, and Ambler, where it receives the Ambler River. In it lower reaches, where it passes between the Baird and Warring mountains, it traverses Kobuk Valley National Park, the location of the 25 sq mi (62 km²) Kobuk Sand Dunes. It then passes Kiana, then pproximately 10 mi (16 km) southwest of Kiana it broadens in a broad delta on Hotham Inlet on Kotzebue Sound, approximately 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Kotzebue.

The river has long been an important transportation route for the inland Eskimo of the region. In 1898 the river was the scene of a brief gold rush called the Kobuk River Stampede. In 1980 the United States Congress designated 110 mi (177 km) of the river downstream from its headwaters on Walker Lake as Kobuk Wild and Scenic River as part of the National Wild and Scenic River program. The river is considered an exceptional destination for recreational floating.

The river contains an exceptional population of sheefish (Stenodus leucicthys), a large predatory fish of the salmon family, related to the whitefishes, found throughout the Arctic that spawns in the river's upper reaches during the autumn. The valley of the river provides an autumn and winter range for western Arctic caribou.