Kenai Fjords National Park, National park and nature reserve in southern Alaska, United States.
Kenai Fjords is a protected area on the southern coast of Alaska where the Harding Icefield feeds more than thirty glaciers that push between steep mountain ranges down to the Pacific. The coastline forms deep inlets and narrow waterways where seabirds nest and seals drift on ice floes.
The area received federal monument status in 1978 and was declared a national park two years later through legislation protecting Alaskan landscapes. The Alutiiq lived along these coasts for centuries and sustained themselves from the sea.
Archaeological surveys in the park recorded village sites occupied between 1200 AD and 1920, including one used from 950 AD to 1800 and another from 1785 to 1820. A 1993 Park Service survey also found evidence of an earthquake around 1170 AD that dropped the shoreline by at least 1.8 metres, likely drowning earlier coastal sites.
The town of Seward serves as the gateway for visits, and from there a single road leads to Exit Glacier at the edge of the park. The remaining areas are reached by boat or floatplane because the terrain is steep and cut through by ice.
The glaciers often calve during the summer months and send house-sized blocks of ice crashing into the water with loud thunder. Beneath the surface the ice stream continues and forms giant walls that become visible from a boat.
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