Category: State Parks

Kluane National Park and Reserve are two protected areas in the southwest corner of the territory of Yukon. The National Park Reserve was set aside in 1972 to become a national park, pending settlement of Native American land claims. It covered an area of 8,499 square miles. When agreement was reached with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations over an eastern portion of the Reserve, that part—about 2,300 square miles became a national park in 1993, and is a unit of the national park system administered co-operatively with Parks Canada. The larger western section remains a Reserve, awaiting a final land claim settlement with the Kluane First Nation. The park borders British Columbia to the south, while the Reserve borders both British Columbia to the south, and the United States (Alaska) to the south and west.
The Reserve includes the highest mountain in Canada, Mount Logan at 19,551 feet of the Saint Elias Mountains. Mountains and glaciers dominate the park’s landscape, covering 83% of its area. The rest of the land in the park is forest and tundra—east of the largest mountains and glaciers—where the climate is colder and drier than in the western and southern parts of the park. Trees grow only at the park’s lowest elevations.
The bi-national Kluane-Wrangell-St. Elias-Glacier Bay-Tatshenshini-Alsek park system comprising Kluane, Wrangell-St Elias, Glacier Bay and Tatshenshini-Alsek parks, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 for the spectacular glacier and icefield landscapes as well as for the importance of grizzly bears, caribou and Dall sheep habitat. This is one of the largest areas of protected land in the world and is immensely wilderness with limited access except by foot or snowshoe. You can still enjoy the expansive vistas from the road.