Granddad (Bill Sweetman) Reserve
Thanks to Nancy Moore and the conservation ethic instilled in her by her parents, a 70-acre historic homestead with a special history is forever conserved. In 1970, Bill Sweetman (aka Granddad) purchased a 160 acre homestead next to the Matanuska Valley Moose Range. Granddad loved this land and until his passing in 1993, he walked the trails and communed with the land almost daily. After Granddad’s passing, the land was passed to his grandchildren Julie, More
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
Nic’anilen Na’
In October of 2018, an oasis of wildlife species richness and diversity in the Copper River Valley was forever conserved, thanks to a generous donation from a local couple and a partnership between Great Land Trust and a local science and education nonprofit. This 40-acre property, donated by Ruth McHenry and Cliff Eames, lies near the confluence of the Tonsina and Copper rivers. Check here to take a virtual tour of the property and learn more More
Shelter Cove
In October 2018, Great Land Trust completed a project to conserve 112 acres of undeveloped land in Cordova, Alaska. Shelter Cove, or “Hippie Cove” as it’s known to some, has a rich history in the community. And now, thanks to all the people who made this project possible, future generations (of humans and wildlife) will be able to enjoy Shelter Cove in its natural state forever. Scroll through our story map to read the story of the 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
Settlers Bay Coastal Park
A Coastal Park for the Mat-Su Alaskans know that proximity to great trails, clean water, public lands, and fish and wildlife are vital to our quality of life and community. With the Settlers Bay Coastal Park, GLT has helped provide access to all of these assets by creating the Mat-Su’s newest park. However you like to access our public lands – on foot, by bike, on skis, through binoculars, or from the end of a 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!
Ełnen Bunkda
In March 2015, we had the tremendous honor of helping to facilitate the transfer of land from an international conservation organization to a local Alaskan tribe. Great Land Trust is partnering with the Native Village of Tyonek to hold the Ełnen Bunkda (Mother of the Earth) Conservation Easement on culturally-significant land donated to the tribe by The Nature Conservancy. The Tebughna, the Dena’ina of the Tyonek area, have inhabited the area for the last thousand More
Eklutna River Estuary
The Eklutna River Estuary Conservation Easement spans a spectacular, eight-mile section of coastline, totaling 1,355 acres along the eastern shoreline of Knik Arm. The Edmonds Creek, Mirror Creek, and Eklutna River estuaries all punctuate these stunning shores. Along with the 2011 Knik River Islands Conservation Easement, this project also reflects ongoing partnership between GLT and Eklutna, Inc, who together have conserved 6,144 acres of important fish and wildlife habitat in Upper Knik Arm. The Fire More
Eklutna Native Cultural Conservation Easement
In 2014, Wells Fargo donated 143 acres of land adjacent to the Native Village of Eklutna to The Conservation Fund for permanent land and habitat conservation. The property is located approximately 25 miles northeast of Anchorage, in the heart of Dena’ina Athabascan country where Alaska Native people have lived for thousands of years. In that same year, a conservation easement over the entire property was transferred to GLT. The land has cultural and historical significance More
Mud Lake
The Mud Lake conservation project is located east of Palmer and covers nearly 800 acres of the richest wildlife area in Southcentral Alaska. The Jim, Mud, and Swan lakes region is home to excellent wetlands that provide important functions including filtering water and storm water retention. Late-spawning silver salmon crowd the shorelines of these lakes into November, attracting hundreds of bald eagles. The project area provides critical spawning and overwintering habitat for the popular Jim More
Mink Creek Wetlands
When driving on the Glenn Highway from Anchorage to the Mat-Su Valley or back, you are sure to see the Mink Creek Conservation Project out your car window. One of several partnerships between GLT and Alaska Native Corporation Eklutna, Inc., the Mink Creek Conservation Project was completed in December 2014. Remaining under the ownership of Eklutna, Inc., the private land will continue as recreation and subsistence lands for shareholders as well as a place for permitted More
Eagle River Greenbelt
Bordered by Chugach State Park and a GLT conservation easement, this was a natural fit for a conservation project. One of several partnerships between GLT and Eklutna, Inc., the Eagle River Greenbelt Conservation Project was completed in December 2014. Remaining under the private ownership of Alaska Native Corporation Eklutna, Inc., the land will continue as subsistence lands for shareholders to hunt and berry-pick, as well as a place for permitted public access. This area contains high More
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
Klatt Bog Wetlands
Beside the South Anchorage ball field near the Minnesota-O’Malley curve, a commercial radio tower has overlooked 21 acres of wetlands in the Klatt Bog complex since 1984. In 2001, MCC Radio, LLC, a subsidiary of Morris Communications, donated a conservation easement to GLT, retaining ownership of the land while ensuring that the wetlands will never be developed. GLT’s fourth conservation easement, the deal exemplifies how a business with a long history in Alaska can take 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
The Upper Little Su Greenbelt – Fishhook
At the end of a little dirt road just off Wasilla Fishhook Road is a breathtaking, forested wetland complex laced with meandering tributaries of the Little Susitna River. Moose, bear, fox, beaver and river otter make their homes here, along with a diversity of waterbirds, resident passerines and all five species of salmon. Michael Downs loved this 56-acre property and the wildlife that his land sustained. His desire was that it would forever remain a 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
Skilling Natural Area
Girdwood is a booming ski town south of Anchorage. GLT was contacted in February 2007 to discuss conservation options for a stunning, thickly forested parcel within a rapidly growing Girdwood neighborhood—an area containing portions of the popular Virgin Creek Trail, identified by the Anchorage Trails Plan as “important to the Girdwood Community for recreational purposes.” Along with portions of the Virgin Creek trail, the property contains 27 acres of upland boreal rainforest and multiple pristine More
Edgerton Pioneer Reserve
As the Little Su flows from the mountains near Hatcher Pass and hits the flatlands, the river meanders through a stand of towering cottonwood trees. Springs, seeps, and backwater channels converge to provide excellent spawning and rearing habitat for salmon. Scott Walther didn’t always think of himself as a King Maker. When he learned he had critical salmon spawning habitat running through his 200 acre property in Hatcher Pass he decided to do what he More
Phalarope Springs
After donating their Little Question Lake property for conservation in 2005, a Talkeetna family approached GLT with an interest in protecting another parcel: the 80-acre Phalarope Springs Conservation Easement, named for the shorebirds who frequent the headwaters of Little Question Lake. This land near Talkeetna has had minimal human impact, so its wetland habitats are pristine. Abutting public lands, the Phalarope Springs Conservation Easement was finalized by GLT in 2013. Though this area is not More
O’Brien Creek Estuary & Historic Homestead
In early 2010, GLT began working with the Harbeson, Chapman, and Barlow families to conserve their historic homestead in honor of their parents. Lying on the northeastern banks of Knik Arm near the old Knik Townsite, their 30-acre O’Brien Creek property was identified by GLT in 2010 as part of a GIS-based parcel prioritization that highlighted privately owned parcels in the Mat-Su Borough with estuarine habitat. Ranked in the top 100 parcels out of over More
Moon Homestead
In the boom years of the early 1980s, land was in demand in the South Fork Valley, so much so that Kenn Moon considered subdividing his Eagle River homestead and selling it off. He engaged an engineering firm, but the map they drew up carved his land into 30 small lots, with wide roads snaking through. Faced with this stark picture of development Moon put the brakes on the plan. Moon held on to his More
Montgomery Homestead
Carol Montgomery lived with her husband on their beautiful, 170-acre homestead on Lazy Mountain for many years, running the abundant trails of the parcel with their team of sled dogs. In 2013 Carol Montgomery donated a conservation easement to GLT, thereby protecting the land forever. Stretching from the toe of the Chugach Mountains to the Matanuska River this area not only offers spectacular nursery habitat for all five species of salmon but it is also More
Little Question Lake
In the Numbered Lakes region of Talkeetna sits an 86-acre parcel of land, embracing two lakes and teeming with wildlife. With a desire to conserve their expansive property for the varied and abundant natural habitat it represents, the landowners approached GLT in 1999. Through a donated conservation easement to GLT, their wish was fulfilled in fall of 2005 and the property, which spans nearly the entire shoreline of Little Question Lake and the northeastern shoreline 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
Knik River Islands
Situated at the confluence of the Knik and Matanuska rivers, the Knik River Islands project forever conserved a unique and important area. It is also a stone’s throw from two of Alaska’s most popular recreational areas—Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge and Chugach State Park. The vast, 4,800-acre area contains excellent habitat for all five species of Pacific salmon in Cook Inlet as well as a range of other wildlife species. Scenic views of the More
Holser Homestead
On 40 acres of exquisite wilderness in the rapidly developing Wasilla area, two rustic log cabins sit undisturbed in the forest, with ponds and wetlands nearby. Once the homestead of Karin Holser, the property had been managed according to conservation principles that encourage habitat diversification and rejuvenation for the wildlife that depend on edge zones and wetlands. When Holser decided to sell the property, she hoped to set a precedent for the use of conservation More
Harmany Ranch Wetlands
In 2008, Jerry Harman had an idea to create a wetland mitigation bank on his Eagle River property. What’s a wetland mitigation bank? When a developer requests a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill jurisdictional wetlands they are required under the Clean Water Act to provide mitigation in one of three forms, depending on the amount and type of wetlands that are filled: on-site mitigation, payment of an in-lieu fee, or More
Goodwin Homestead
During a scenic plan ride in 1971, Mat-Su Valley elementary school teachers Rocky and Sue Goodwin fell in love with a parcel of land near Dandy Lake that they spotted from the air. After securing the funds to purchase the property they spent a solid five years building a driveway. Then a mobile home and then their life on Dandy Lake began. The Goodwins raised sheep and goats on their farm, eventually purchasing an adjoining More
Goodman Family Spring Creek
Near Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge, landowners have faced strong market pressure to develop and fragment adjacent wetlands. Facing a “gold rush” of residential development, one family approached GLT to discover how they could help protect the area and the wildlife that call it home. The Goodman Family Spring Creek Project began in 2005 when GLT received a Stewardship Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Private to complete GIS–based land prioritization in More
Fire Creek Estuary
The Fire Creek Estuary Conservation project spans almost a mile of coastline, totaling 523 acres along the eastern shoreline of Knik Arm. The Fire Creek and Mink Creek estuaries all punctuate these stunning shores. Since 2011, an ongoing partnership between GLT and Eklutna, Inc. has resulted in the permanent conservation of 7,473 acres of important subsistence lands and fish and wildlife habitat. Eklutna, Inc. is proud to uphold twin values of providing jobs for its More
Andover Natural Area
In 1997, twelve neighbors in South Anchorage teamed up to purchase four acres of open space in the Eagle Brook Subdivision. Their goal: to create a natural buffer in their rapidly growing subdivision that would simultaneously offer access to a neighborhood park. To reach a larger goal of permanently protecting the wetlands, wildlife habitat, and open space in the parcel, the new landowners partnered with GLT to create the Andover Conservation Easement—the first conservation easement More
- Public
- Private
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 approached GLT about taking over responsibility for the land and the cranes after his passing.
When we accepted the gift of Saunders’ land and endowment, GLT made a commitment to always care for the land and the Sandhill Cranes who pass through it. With their distinctive, rolling calls, majestic flight and the gangly grace of their mating dance, Dale’s scarlet-capped cranes can be seen each spring and fall as they migrate to and from Alaska.
GETTING THERE: TURN RIGHT (EAST) FROM THE PARKS HIGHWAY ONTO SUSITNA RIVER ROAD (OR EAST PETERSVILLE ROAD) AT MILEPOST 114.8. AFTER 1.5 MILES, TURN RIGHT ONTO BRADLEY ROAD. AFTER A HALF-MILE TAKE ANOTHER RIGHT TO SAUNDERS ROAD. ABOUT A HALF-MILE DOWN SAUNDERS ROAD IS A 75-ACRE BARLEY FIELD. PLEASE ENJOY THE BIRDS FROM THE ROAD.
Region: Mat-Su Borough
City or Nearby Town: Trapper Creek
Acreage: 80
Year Completed: 2007
Type of Project: GLT-Owned Property
Public or Private: Public