Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park, Nature reserve in British Columbia, Canada
Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park is a 9,580 km2 wilderness park in the far northwest corner of British Columbia, bordering Alaska and Yukon. The Tatshenshini and Alsek rivers run through glacier-carved U-shaped valleys between the Alsek Ranges; Mount Fairweather, at 4,671 m, is the province's highest peak. The park is part of the Kluane-Wrangell-St. Elias-Glacier Bay-Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Tatshenshini-Alsek was among the last areas of British Columbia to be mapped. Geological exploration in the 1960s found major copper deposits near Windy Craggy Mountain, and in the mid-1980s a proposal emerged to turn the peak into a huge open-pit mine. After the Tatshenshini International campaign, with involvement from US Vice-President Al Gore, Premier Mike Harcourt's government made it a Class A park in June 1993 and paid the claim owners $103.8 million.
The park's eastern edge follows an old trade route used by the Chilkat, a Tlingit people, to barter with the Tutchone. Tlingit and Southern Tutchone fishing villages once lined the Tatshenshini and Alsek rivers. The Champagne and Aishihik First Nations co-manage the park and named the frozen man found in 1999 Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi.
The park lies in British Columbia's far northwest, and all land west of the Haines Highway is included; the eastern edge follows the old Chilkat trade route. Rafting on the Tatshenshini and Alsek began in the mid-1970s. The area is one of high earthquake activity, with slippages along the Fairweather, Hubbard/Border and Denali faults.
The park is the only place in Canada where the glacier bear lives, a rare blue-grey colour phase of the black bear found here and just across the border into the United States. A green corridor cutting through mountain and ice links coastal and interior grizzly populations.
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