Innoko Wilderness

The Innoko Wilderness is located in the southeastern portion of the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge and makes up roughly one-third of the total area. A transition zone between the boreal forestland of interior Alaska and the open tundra of western Alaska, it ranges from about 100 to 700 feet in elevation and stands well over half in wetlands of muskeg and marsh, lakes, meandering rivers, and streams dotted with islands of black spruce and an understory of mosses, lichens, and shrubs. Paper birch and white spruce cover hills rolling up from the Yukon and Innoko Rivers, and along the rivers you will find numerous privately owned subsistence camps used periodically for hunting and fishing by Native Alaskans. The rivers, bound with willows and alder, run rich with salmon, whitefish, sheefish, grayling, and northern pike. All the lakes have northern pike except the shallow bodies of water that freeze to the bottom in winter. More than 20,000 beavers live in these wetlands, the densest population in the state, along with moose and caribou, black and brown bears, red foxes, coyotes, lynx, otters, wolves, and wolverines. An estimated 65,000 white-fronted and lesser Canada geese spend their summers here with more than 380,000 other waterfowl and shorebirds. Hungry mosquitoes cloud the summer landscape. Innoko receives 13 inches of precipitation each year, which can fall at any time in spring, summer, or fall. Summer temperatures average in the 50s and 60s Fahrenheit and between -15F and 0F in winter. Temperatures can drop to freezing any night of the year and extreme winter conditions sometimes reach 60 degrees below zero. From May through July light is almost constant and the sun never sets in mid-June; in mid-December the sun never rises. Of the few human visitors, moose hunters are the most common. They find no trails, no facilities, and no immediate aid from the refuge staff of seven permanent employees who live 70 air miles away. Camping is unrestricted except on private inholdings, campfires are permitted, and firewood is abundant. If you come, bring rubber boots for walking, and binoculars for observing all the wildlife, except the mosquitoes, of course, which are inescapable.