The Best Gateway Towns To Gates of the Arctic National Park

Gates of the Arctic National Park does not have the usual gateway-town setup, but there are still a few practical places to begin a visit. There is no road into the park, so most travelers reach it by regional flight and charter service rather than by car. That makes air access, local flight connections, and a small set of visitor services more important here than the usual gateway-town formula. The three towns below stand out as the park’s most practical access points, with most trips beginning in Fairbanks and continuing on to Bettles, Anaktuvuk Pass, or Coldfoot.

Coldfoot

If you’re looking for a more sizable town to base yourself in before a visit to Gates of the Arctic National Park, you’ll want to look at Coldfoot. In addition to the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center, which serves as a primary visitor center during the summer season, Coldfoot is home to Coldfoot Camp and other visitor services, including lodging, a café, fuel, and tour operators. Coldfoot is accessible from Fairbanks via scheduled flights, and while in Coldfoot, local operators offer charter flights into Gates of the Arctic National Park.

Once a gold rush boom town, Coldfoot is that rarest of Arctic towns: one with road access to Fairbanks for at least part of the year. Though it's easiest to reach via a scheduled flight, Coldfoot is located on the Dalton Highway, which connects the 500-mile stretch from Fairbanks to Deadhorse in the north, and many of its services are thanks to its continued use as a truck stop for truckers driving the Dalton Highway.

Coldfoot is the best choice for your gateway town if you're hoping for more interpretive services, as the home of the park's main visitor center.

Bettles

180 miles north of Fairbanks by air, Bettles is one of the more convenient hubs for Gates of the Arctic National Park. One of the smallest incorporated settlements in Alaska, it’s accessible by regular flights from Fairbanks and hosts several charter companies that can arrange transportation into the park. The summer-only Bettles Ranger Station can provide you with information on getting to and around the park, as well as nearby (in Alaska terms!) Kobuk Valley National Park, and while you’re waiting for your chartered flight to take you to Gates of the Arctic, overnighting in Bettles is possible at the Bettles Lodge.

Though this tiny far-northern town has few amenities, Bettles sits about 20 miles from the park boundary and is one of the most convenient places to arrange charter flights into Gates of the Arctic. That proximity, combined with regular flights from Fairbanks, a summer ranger station, and overnight lodging at Bettles Lodge, makes it a practical access point for travelers who want help getting into the park.

Anaktuvuk Pass

The only community inside the boundaries of Gates of the Arctic National Park is Anaktuvuk Pass, a Nunamiut indigenous community accessible by scheduled flights from Fairbanks. It’s the best jumping-off point for you if the lack of services available in other gateway towns makes you nervous: a summer-only ranger station, a hotel, a grocery store, and a restaurant provide basic services to visitors while not traveling elsewhere in the park. Visitors can also camp out along the area of the access road on the east side of the airstrip and traverse the park on foot, but are asked not to interfere in any way with the subsistence hunting activities of the Nunamiut people who live in the area.

Located along a major caribou migration route, it has been a home of the Nunamiut, the inland-dwelling group of the Inupiat nation, for centuries. Their caribou-based lifestyle became unsustainable in the early 20th century, when the caribou population collapsed, but Alaska's last Nunamiut community has long since returned to its ancestral home. Now, this settlement of roughly 400 people relies primarily on subsistence hunting. You can learn more about this history at the town's Simon Paneak Memorial Museum.

Be careful where you explore on foot. Land ownership is a contentious issue in this area, and you can easily end up trespassing on Native corporation land or private parcels without intending to, so stick to areas where you've been told you're allowed to be if you choose Anaktuvuk Pass as your gateway.

Choosing the Right Access Point

Planning a trip to Gates of the Arctic National Park means choosing the access point that best fits your experience level, service needs, and itinerary. Bettles, Anaktuvuk Pass, and Coldfoot each offer a different mix of flights, visitor services, and proximity to the park. No matter which one you choose, getting into Gates of the Arctic takes more planning than most national park visits, so it helps to arrange transportation, supplies, and logistics well in advance.