Kobuk Valley National Park

Kobuk Valley holds one of the Arctic's strangest sights: the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, 100-foot dunes left by glaciers, rising above the tundra 25 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Each year hundreds of thousands of caribou migrate through the valley, and people have hunted them at Onion Portage for thousands of years, making it one of the richest archaeological sites in the Arctic.

The park has no trails or roads; visitors who make the trip can play on the giant dunes and watch the caribou migration. For a challenge, experienced boaters can float the Kobuk River on a self-supported expedition through true wilderness.