3 Best Sights in The Bush, Alaska

At the northern end of the Alaska Peninsula, this sanctuary protects the world's largest gathering of brown bears. During the July to mid-August chum season, when salmon return to spawn, 50, 60, or even 70 brown bears congregate daily at the McNeil River falls to fish, eat, play, nap, and nurse cubs. The action happens within 15 to 20 feet of a viewing pad, so close that you can hear these magnificent creatures breathe and catch a whiff of their wet fur. Only 10 people a day can visit the viewing sites, and staffers (armed) are on hand to ensure that everyone behaves in nonthreatening, nonintrusive ways.

Because demand is so high, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issues permits via a mid-March lottery. Applications and a nonrefundable $30 fee must be received by March 1, and Alaska residents get preferential treatment. Those who win pay an additional fee of just over $100 to $525, depending on the type of permit and the holder's residency. Air taxis to the sanctuary fly out of Homer on the Kenai Peninsula. Once in the sanctuary, all travel is by foot and guided by state biologists. Permit holders camp on gravel pads, in a protected area near a communal cook house, and must bring all their food.

The Porcupine caribou herd, with nearly 200,000 animals, migrates through Alaska's Arctic and Canada's adjacent Vuntut and Ivvavik National Parks, flowing like a river of animals across the expansive coastal plain, through U-shape valleys and alpine meadows, and over high mountain passes. These migration routes demonstrate the interconnected nature of the region's lands and waters, and how arbitrary human boundaries seem.

The largest of the Pribilof Islands at 40 square miles, St. Paul Island is home to the greatest concentration of northern fur seals in the world—500,000 of them—and more than 180 varieties of birds. Certainly it's hard to reach, but it's also a guaranteed treat for adventuresome naturalists. Russian fur traders claimed and named St. George, St. Paul, and St. Peter Islands, and they also enslaved the people of the Aleutian communities in Atka, Siberia, and Unalaska, relocating them to the islands to hunt for fur seals. About 500 descendants of Indigenous Aleutian-Russians live in St. Paul year-round, and the community has many elements of Aleutian cultures, as well as the Russian Orthodox Sts. Peter and Paul Church, built in 1907. The local museum provides details on how the U.S. government once controlled seal hunting on the island.