Lake Clark: Dick Proenneke's cabin, among volcanoes, glaciers and brown bears

Lake Clark is on the other side of Cook Inlet, opposite the Kenai Peninsula. The park takes its name from a lake 65 km long, with turquoise water. It has just about everything Alaska has to offer: two active volcanoes, glaciers, tundra, salmon rivers and a coast where brown bears come to fish.

History and origins

The Dena’ina have lived around the lake for centuries. They call it “the lake where people gather”. Their descendants still live in the villages on its shores.

The park was created in 1980, largely to protect the rivers where the sockeye salmon of Bristol Bay are born, the largest wild salmon fishery in the world.

What to do there

• The bears of the coast: at Chinitna Bay and on the neighbouring beaches, dozens of brown bears graze in the salt meadows, dig in the sand for clams, then fish for salmon. You watch them on foot, with a guide, from a safe distance.
• Proenneke’s cabin: in 1968, Dick Proenneke, a retired mechanic, built his cabin alone on the shore of a lake, with hand tools. He lived there for thirty years and filmed his daily life. His journal has become a classic. The cabin, intact, can be visited by floatplane.
• Port Alsworth: a village of 200 inhabitants on the lakeshore, where the visitor center is. A trail leads from it to a waterfall and a mountain lake.
• The lake: by kayak or boat, between mountains that drop into the water.
• The volcanoes: Redoubt and Iliamna, two snow-covered cones more than 3,000 metres high, can be seen from Anchorage in clear weather. Redoubt erupted in 2009.

Stories and good to know

• The film made from Proenneke’s footage is still shown regularly on American television. It has made this cabin one of the most famous in the country.
• The park is one of the least visited in the United States.

Practical information for your trip

• Getting there: allow an hour’s flight from Anchorage to Port Alsworth. Bear-viewing excursions also leave from Homer and Kenai.
• Budget: a day of bear viewing by plane costs several hundred dollars per person.
• Clothing: a waterproof, rubber boots for landing on the beaches, and something warm.
• Where to stay: in the lodges of Port Alsworth or the coast, often on a full-board basis.
• Combine it with: Katmai and Kenai Fjords.