The grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear (Ursus arctos) that generally lives in the uplands of western North America. This subspecies is thought to descend from Ussuri brown bears which crossed to Alaska from eastern Russia 100,000 years ago, though they did not move south until 13,000 years ago.
Except for cubs and females , grizzlies are normally solitary, active animals, but in coastal areas, the grizzly congregates alongside streams, lakes, rivers, and ponds during the salmon spawn. Every other year, females (sows) produce one to four young (commonly two) which are small and weigh only about 500 grams (1 lb). A sow is protective of her offspring and will attack if she thinks she or her cubs are threatened.
Established in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve is a United States National Park in southwestern Alaska. The park includes many streams and lakes vital to the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. The park allows a wide variety of recreational activities year-round.
Lake Clark has been called "the essence of Alaska", for it concentrates in a relatively small area of the Alaska Peninsula, Southwest of Anchorage, a variety of features not found together in any of the other Alaska Parks: the junction of three mountain ranges, (the Alaska Range from the North, the Aleutian Range from the South, and the park's own rugged Chigmit Mountains), two active volcanoes (Iliamna and Redoubt), a coastline with rainforests on the East (similar to South East Alaska), a plateau with tundra on the West (similar to Arctic Alaska), and turquoise lakes.
No roads lead to the park and it can only be reached by small aircraft, floatplanes being the best method. The park, one of the least visited in the National Park System, averages just over 5,000 visitors per year.
The documentary film "Alone in the Wilderness" (2003) is set in what is now the park. Most of the film was taken in 1968 and shows the Twin Lakes portion of the park.