Land we've Conserved
Protected estuaries. New and expanded park access. Stream corridors to benefit fish and wildlife. Our projects reflect the breadth of Southcentral Alaska's varied landscape and the depth of our love for the land.
Palmer Slough
Great Land Trust raised the funds to purchase this inholding in the Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge and donated the parcel to the State of Alaska to be managed by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game as part of the Refuge. At over 28,000 acres, the Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge consists of coastal and freshwater wetlands, tidal sloughs and mudflats, lakes and streams, and upland birch forests. It is home to More
Lower Kenai River Frontage – Mile 10
10 acres of riverfront along the lower Kenai River are now conserved forever! Many residents know the Kenai River as the site of a few weeks of lively mayhem each summer, where locals try their luck at dipnetting in an attempt to fill their freezers with salmon for the winter. But the reason that we’re able to come back year after year to fish this river is that some salmon make it past the nets More
Long Island
Great Land Trust led the effort to conserve Long Island; working with willing landowner, Leisnoi, Inc. and other partners, such as the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, which funded the project, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program, to make this project a reality. Long Island is located within the Audubon Society-recognized Chiniak Bay Important Bird Area (IBA), an area of global importance due to its unique bird habitat. Seabirds within the Chiniak Bay More
Portage Lake
In 2018, Great Land Trust collaborated with Natives of Kodiak (NOK), the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Trustee Council, State of Alaska, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program to gain permanent protection of over 3,000 acres on Northern Afognak Island that contains Portage Lake, Portage Creek, and the Portage Creek Estuary in Discoverer Bay. Ecological richness and contiguity with other conserved and protected lands made this property a natural More
Kellogg Spring Creek Farm
Spring Creek Farm is currently the largest privately-owned working farm in Southcentral Alaska and is located in the fastest growing region of the state, where productive farmland is rapidly declining. Neighboring farm parcels have been sold in recent years for residential development, but this property at Kellogg Spring Creek Farm will forever remain farmland. With this project, GLT conserved a 74-acre portion of the farm to be used as farmland forever. This project was made More
Northern Afognak Island Wildlife Corridor
Puffins and Public Land: 36,000 acres conserved near Kodiak thanks to a private-public partnership and donors like you!
Bodenburg Butte
With your support, GLT purchased the 40-acre summit for permanent public access and recreation.
Wasilla Creek Boardwalk into the Palmer Hay Flats Refuge officially opens to the public
Thank you to the project funders, partners, and hundreds of individuals that made this happen!
Campbell Creek Estuary Natural Area
The Campbell Creek Estuary project began in 2010 when GLT purchased an old homestead and transferred it to the Municipality of Anchorage as a Natural Area Park. GLT now holds a conservation easement over the entire parcel, which ensures permanent access to this beautiful, 60-acre coastal open space. Thanks to more than $7.4 million in fundraising dollars and countless volunteer hours, Campbell Creek Estuary is now open to the public, with trails and viewing platforms More
Helen Louise McDowell Sanctuary
Nestled behind houses in Geneva Woods, the 14-acre wetlands of Fish Creek remained mostly untouched while streets, subdivisions and strip malls sprang up on all sides. Though the parcel’s development seemed inevitable, a group of Geneva Woods residents organized with the goal of preserving the wetlands as neighborhood parkland. First, then-Geneva Woods resident George Haugen purchased the property. Next, he approached Great Land Trust about options for conserving it. Haugen agreed to sell the parcel More
Fish Creek Estuary
Phase one of a plan to conserve an entire watershed, the Fish Creek Conservation Project has successfully protected the only remaining undeveloped estuary of the seven original salmon streams in Anchorage. A pocket of urban wilderness along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, the lower reaches of Fish Creek Estuary are known to thousands of birders and cyclists who visit the area annually. Juvenile silver salmon and other resident fish thrive here, along with more than More
Dale Saunders Crane Sanctuary & Homestead
The first pair of Sandhill Cranes appeared on Dale Saunders’ 80-acre barley farm in Susitna Valley in 1959. Over the next four decades, whether Saunders’ harvest was bountiful or weak, one thing was predictable—the twice-yearly visits of migrating Sandhill Cranes, who feasted on leftovers from his past harvests. By his later years the birds were so much like family that Saunders was compelled to plan for their future. On a tip from a neighbor, Saunders More
Schmidt Overlook
Where Ray E. Storck Homestead Park abuts Section 36, wetlands make it impossible to build trails linking these areas. But in 2012 a solution appeared when Ruth Schmidt donated her 4.8-acre Bear Valley property to GLT. The land Schmidt provided is ideally situated for a trailhead that can link Storck Park to trails in Section 36—without disturbing the sensitive wetland area of Storck Park. Though GLT donated the property to the Municipality of Anchorage Parks More
Near Point Access
At a half-million acres, Chugach State Park is the United State’s third largest state park and a destination for thousands of visitors each year. But in some areas, access to the park is severely limited. Case in point: In Stuckagain Heights, the Near Point parcel was originally planned to be part of the park, but the land had long been in private hands—even targeted for developments that would be out of character with not only More
Waldron Natural Area
Today, the Waldron Homestead stands smack-dab in the middle of town. But when the Waldron kids were growing up on their family’s 160-acre homestead, Tudor Road was little more than a moose path and the nearest neighbors were a half-mile away. Their parents, Roger and Marcie, had laid claim to the land shortly after Roger returned from World War II, when dozens of veterans took up homesteads in the largely undeveloped Anchorage Bowl. In 1995, More
Tanglewood Park
Beside Bowman Elementary School in South Anchorage is a 41-acre stretch of open space. When the parcel was slated for development of eighty-seven condominiums and expansion of a nine-hole golf course, local residents came to GLT. As adjacent landowners, they valued the land as a quiet recreational open space—a treasured place for skiing, dog walking and wildlife viewing. In addition to its community values, this property contains a large wetlands complex crucial to healthy drainage More
Su-Knik Wetlands
The Mat-Su Borough owns a parcel that had been classified to become a Wetland Mitigation Bank—resource wetland area that is conserved in order to compensate for unavoidable impacts to wetlands nearby. In 2008, the Mat-Su Borough approached GLT about establishing a conservation easement on the parcel. Historically, these public lands had been accessible for fall moose hunting, winter trapping, cross-country skiing, snow shoeing, dog-sledding and snow machining; the adjacent land is currently leased by the More
Little Campbell Creek Greenbelt
In 1998, GLT partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to set up a Wetland Acquisition and Restoration Fund for Little Campbell Creek in Anchorage to conserve this important area. Eleven square miles in diameter, the Little Campbell Creek watershed accounts for 50% of the flow into the Campbell Creek Watershed. Unfortunately, Little Campbell Creek has lost all but 200 acres of its wetlands to development over the last 30 years. Without a greenbelt More
La Honda Fish Creek
Just north of Northern Lights Boulevard, the parcel that makes up La Honda Fish Creek property was slated for condominium development. As Phase Two of our Fish Creek Conservation Project, GLT purchased the area to conserve as neighborhood open space. Running along the Fish Creek greenbelt, the property is thick with mature spruce and birch, and wetlands that help filter our drinking water. With Fish Creek cutting through it, a variety of birds—hawks, owls, and More
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