thumb|Map of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve

The Bering Land Bridge National Preserve is one of the most remote protected areas of the United States, located on the Seward Peninsula. The National Preserve protects a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge that connected Asia with North America more than 13,000 years ago during the Pleistocene ice age. The majority of this land bridge now lies beneath the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas. During the glacial epoch this bridge was a migration route for people, animals, and plants whenever ocean levels fell enough to expose the land bridge. whether it was across this Bering Land Bridge, also called Beringia, that humans first migrated from Asia to populate the Americas, or whether it was via a coastal route.

Bering Land Bridge National Monument was established in 1978 by Presidential proclamation under the authority of the Antiquities Act. The designation was modified in 1980 to a national preserve with the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which would allow both subsistence hunting by local residents and sport hunting. The preserve includes significant archaeological sites and a variety of geological features.

Geography

The preserve lies on the northern side of the Seward Peninsula, with .

There are no roads into the preserve. Access to the preserve is by bush planes or boats during summer months and by ski planes, snowmobiles or dog sleds during the winter. Other notable locations in the preserve include the Trail Creek Caves, Devil Mountain Lakes, and the Lost Jim Lava Flow. The region was mostly untouched by glaciers during the ice age. The preserve lands can be described by five physiographic zones: the northern coastal plan, the rolling stream-dissected uplands, the Imuruk lava plateau, the Kuzitrin flats, and the Bendeleben Mountains. with deposits of sand, gravel, silt, loess and a few glacier-deposited moraines. The area around Cape Espenberg includes a series of relict beach ridges like those found farther north at Cape Krusenstern. These deposits are found mainly in the coastal plain, where they form a system of lagoons and barrier bars or spits. The rolling uplands lie inland and to the south of the coastal plain. The Serpentine Hot Springs and Trail Creek Caves are in this region of limestone, marble and other minerals. One remnant of volcanism is the presence of hot springs. The Serpentine Hot Springs produce water at a temperature of to , and have been used for millennia by local people. Granite tors are another volcanic remnant, formed underground and exposed by erosion. Bering Land Bridge has the four largest and northernmost maar lakes in the world at Espenberg, formed by phreatomagmatic eruptions leaving round craters. The ages of the lakes range from 100,000–200,000 years at Whitefish Maar, to 50,000 years at North Killeak Maar, 40,000 years at South Killeak Maar, and 17,500 years at Devil Mountain Maar.

The action of ice and permafrost produces features such as polygonal ice wedges and pingos.), previously known as Arctic Hot Springs, is located in the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. The springs are also referred to as Iyat, the Inupiaq word for cooking pot. Serpentine Hot Springs is on the northern part of the Seward Peninsula at 65°51′N, 164°43′W. The springs are situated on the right bank of Hot Springs Creek which flows to the Serpentine River, 47 miles NW of Imuruk Lake.

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File:Serpentine rocks (9922868266).jpg|Serpentine rocks

File:Serpentine Nature (Tors) Photo1 resize (16085999268).jpg|Serpentine Tors

File:Tor landscape (7692291618).jpg|Serpentine Tors

File:Serpentine fall (9922893356).jpg|Serpentine Falls

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History

Serpentine Hot Springs was originally described by Arthur J. Collier in U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin (1902). Collier noted that Charles McLennan, who with a dog team and Inupiat assistants, was probably the first white man to reach the hot springs in May, 1900. McLennan may have staked a mining claim nearby but left the country by September, 1901. Another miner, John Sirene, built a cabin and maintained a garden at the springs. Miners used the area intermittently until around 1915, when prospectors built a cabin, bathhouse, and a bathing pool that was 10 to 12 feet in diameter nearby. A runway may have been constructed in 1923 and a bunkhouse was dragged in by Alaska Road Commission workers in 1949. In 1953, the nearby village of Shishmaref received $53,000 in state funds to construct a public bath house.

It is possible that the springs were used traditionally by Inupiat residents for cooking, for healing and spiritual purposes. Anthropologists who studied the Inupiat in the area reported local beliefs that the healing influences at the hot springs site was very strong.

Ecology

Most of the land in the preserve is tundra, underlain by permafrost. Large trees cannot survive on the tundra. Tree species are limited to dwarf species like Arctic willow, Alaska willow and dwarf birch. Berry-bearing plants in the preserve include bog blueberry, crowberry, low-bush cranberry and cloudberry or salmonberry. Lichens are found in rocky areas, including Cetraria, Cladina, Cladonia, Xanthoria and Umbilicaria genera. Mosses and liverworts in the preserve include Sphagnum peat mosses, Aulacomnium bog mosses, Dicranum forked mosses, Polytrichum haircap mosses and Rhizomnium. In spring the preserve features a variety of wildflowers, including Alpine Arnica, fireweed, Kamchatka rhododendron, Labrador tea, monkshood, one-flowered cinquefoil, harebell and alpine forget-me-not.

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File:Bearberry and lichen (7977125277).jpg|Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

File:Potentilla uniflora (8029755823).jpg|Potentilla uniflora

File:Eriophorum angustifolium (5858098416).jpg|Eriophorum angustifolium

File:Eritrichium nanum (5822403162).jpg|Eritrichium nanum

File:Vaccinium oxycoccos (7497509706).jpg|Vaccinium oxycoccos

File:Kalmia procumbens (7497592758).jpg|Kalmia procumbens

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Caribou are survivors of the ice age environment in the preserve, together with reintroduced muskoxen. The muskoxen were reintroduced to the area in 1970, after being wiped out in the early 20th century. In addition to the native caribou, Siberian tundra reindeer (Rangifer tarandus sibiricus) were introduced in 1894, reaching a peak population of 600,000 animals in the 1930s. The herd has since been reduced to about 4,000. Other mammals in the preserve are walruses, polar bears, red foxes, brown bears, Arctic foxes, ribbon seals, wolverines and beavers. Significant nesting bird species include sandhill cranes and yellow-billed loons.

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File:Muskox Family.jpg|Muskox family

File:Caribou (16272522662).jpg|Caribou

File:Arctic Tern (8028148944).jpg| Arctic Tern

File:Red Fox (3682444110).jpg| Red Fox

File:Moose (9514270204).jpg| Moose

File:Willow Ptarmigan- George C. Wood resize (16273373035).jpg|Willow ptarmigan

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The Seward Peninsula's rivers and streams are habitat for freshwater fish and for anadromous salmon species. The principal salmon species are chinook, coho, sockeye, chum and pink salmon. Other salmonids such as Dolly Varden trout and Arctic grayling remain in freshwater throughout their life cycle. The preserve also harbors northern pike and other fish.

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File:Bowhead-1 Kate Stafford edit (16272151841).jpg|Bowhead whale breaching

File:Ribbon-seal-male Josh London NOAAedit (16086029928) (cropped).jpg| Ribbon Seal

File:Walrus- U.S. F&W Service edit (16085870988).jpg| Walrus

File:Dolly-Varden- Morgan Bond, U of Washington edit (15651417154).jpg|Dolly Varden trout

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The preserve has weather typical of northwestern Alaska, with long cold winters. Weather is moderated by the coastal location, but temperatures can reach in winter and typical low temperatures in winter are to . Summer temperatures average about . The average annual temperature is .

Muskoxen mass death in 2011

An entire herd of 55 muskoxen died in a storm surge in the National Reserve in February 2011. The herd had been crossing a bay in the Kotzebue Sound, when it was surprised by a combination of a tidal surge and flooding in connection with a winter storm. When the tidal surge reached the herd, it broke the ice underneath it and the herd plunged into the icy water. The temperature was below −30&nbsp;°C, and the whole herd was killed and frozen in the ice. Four of the animals had been fitted with radio collars, and they were found by researchers looking for their signals. In addition to their reintroduction to this national preserve, the remaining population of muskoxen are currently in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve as well as a local farm in Palmer which has existed since the mid-1950s.

History

thumb|Cape Espenberg from the air

The Seward Peninsula, as part of Beringia, was a path for the migration of Asian peoples into the Americas. The earliest artifacts found in the area are modified animal bones dating to about 13,000 BC. These are not considered definitive, and the earliest undisputed evidence of human occupation are relics of the Paleo-Arctic tradition found in the Trail Creek Caves and dating to between 10,000 and 7,000 BC. Archaeological evidence suggests a gap in human occupation on the peninsula until about 4200 BC. Materials from the period 4000 to about 2000 BC, known as the Denbigh culture of the Arctic small tool tradition, have been found at Cape Espenberg, the Trail Creek Caves, Kuzitrin Lake and Agulaak Island. The Denbigh culture was followed by the Choris culture, which brought pottery and ground stone tools. Cape Espenberg, the Trail Creek Caves and the region around Lopp Lagoon were occupied during this time. This was followed by the Ipuitak culture from about 1900 BC to 1000 BC, at many of the same locations.

See also

  • Models of migration to the New World

References

  • Bering Land Bridge National Preserve National Park Service site
  • Bering Land Bridge National Preserve at the National Park Service Alaska Regional Office