Brooks Camp★5.0

How to Get There

From Anchorage, AK (~290 mi): Fly Alaska Airlines to King Salmon Airport (AKN) ~1 hour, then take a floatplane ~30 minutes to Brooks Camp on Naknek Lake via Katmai Air or another charter service.

Overview

Brooks Camp is a visitor attraction and archeological site in Katmai National Park and Preserve, noted for its opportunities for visitors to observe Alaskan brown bears catching fish in the falls of the Brooks River during salmon spawning season. The Brooks River connects Lake Brooks and Naknek Lake over about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi). This natural choke point for salmon runs made it an attractive location for prehistoric Alaskans, who occupied the area from 4500 BP. The Aglegmut Eskimo people lived along the Brooks River in historical times. The Brooks River Archeological District, which includes Brooks Camp, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993.

The original Eskimo name for the lake was Ketivik, or Qit'rwik, which means "beavers broke their houses a long time ago," or alternatively, "sheltered place behind a point." Brooks Lake and Brooks River were named in 1919 by Robert Fiske Griggs, after Alfred Hulse Brooks, the geologist in charge of exploring and mapping the Territory of Alaska.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Brooks Camp", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0