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49 free Katmai National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Katmai National Park trivia quiz covers the four-million-acre park and preserve on the Alaska Peninsula that most people know from the bear cams: brown bears snatching sockeye salmon at Brooks Falls, and the annual Fat Bear Week vote. Questions cover the bears and salmon, Otis and the other webcam stars, the coast at Hallo Bay, the wolves, moose and lynx that share the park, and the practicalities of a park with no road connection to the outside world. The other half of Katmai's story is fire: the June 1912 eruption of Novarupta, the largest of the 20th century, which collapsed Mount Katmai's summit and buried a valley in ash so hot it steamed for decades. Questions follow Robert Griggs and the National Geographic expeditions that named the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, Woodrow Wilson's 1918 monument, the Hoover expansion that took in Brooks Falls, ANILCA in 1980, the Exxon Valdez oil, and the death of Timothy Treadwell. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question, so it works for a bear-cam watch party or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our US National Parks and Volcanoes quizzes next.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Katmai's headquarters town lies about 290 miles southwest of which Alaskan city?
Anchorage
The park's headquarters town sits about 290 air miles southwest of Anchorage on the Alaska Peninsula; with no road link to the rest of Alaska, nearly every visitor arrives by air from Anchorage.
Q 02Katmai protects about 2,200 of which animal, one of the world's largest protected populations?
Brown bears
Katmai's roughly 2,200 brown bears form one of the largest protected brown bear populations on Earth; strict food-storage rules keep them from learning to associate people with food.
Q 03Which fish draws the bears to Katmai's rivers each summer?
Sockeye salmon
Sockeye salmon, the reds, enter the Naknek drainage in June and July and spawn from August to October; bears, eagles and anglers all feed on the run.
Q 04At which waterfall, a mile and a half from Naknek Lake, do bears famously catch leaping salmon?
Brooks Falls
Brooks Falls, on the short Brooks River between Brooks Lake and Naknek Lake, is where bears line the lip to snatch leaping sockeye; a dozen or more may gather in July, the peak month.
Q 05How high is the waterfall the salmon must leap on the Brooks River?
About 6 feet
Brooks Falls drops only about 6 feet, yet that is enough to make sockeye leap and to let bears line its lip; the best viewing months are July and September.
Q 06What is the annual online contest in which the public votes for Katmai's fattest bruin?
Fat Bear Week
Fat Bear Week, run each autumn with Explore.org's live webcams, pits Brooks River bears in a bracket; voters pick the bear that bulked up best for winter, and it has drawn over a million votes in a year.
Q 07The park's fat-bruin contest began in 2014 as what?
A one-day Facebook vote
Ranger Mike Fitz launched it in 2014 as Fat Bear Tuesday, a one-day Facebook vote comparing before-and-after photos of a few bears; it grew into the week-long bracket in 2015.
Q 08Which patient, conflict-avoiding bear, number 480, won the park's fat-bruin vote four times?
Otis
Otis, bear 480, won in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2021 by sitting patiently in his favourite 'office' below the falls and letting fish come to him; he was first identified in 2001.
Q 09A Katmai bear can eat as much as how much salmon in a single day during hyperphagia?
120 pounds
A Katmai bear in hyperphagia can eat up to 120 pounds of salmon, roughly 30 sockeye, in a day and gain several pounds daily; big males can top 1,000 pounds by autumn.
Q 10Roughly what fraction of its body weight can a bear lose during hibernation?
Up to a third
A hibernating bear can lose up to a third of its body weight, since it neither eats nor drinks until spring; that is why autumn fat matters so much, especially for pregnant females.
Q 11The 1912 eruption in what is now Katmai was the largest of the 20th century; which vent produced it?
Novarupta
Novarupta, a vent that opened six miles from Mount Katmai, produced the 1912 eruption; Mount Katmai got the credit for decades until Garniss Curtis's 1950s fieldwork traced the ash to the new vent.
Q 12The 1912 eruption released how many times the magma of Mount St. Helens in 1980?
30
Rated VEI 6, the 60-hour eruption threw out 3.1 to 3.6 cubic miles of ash; only Pinatubo and Santa María came close last century.
Q 13What happened to Mount Katmai during the 1912 eruption, even though the magma came out six miles away?
Its summit collapsed into a caldera
Q 21How big are the park and preserve combined?
About 4.1 million acres
The park and preserve together cover about 4.1 million acres (4,093,077), roughly 6,400 square miles, most of it designated wilderness.
Q 22How many volcanoes does the park contain, seven of them active since 1900?
18
Katmai holds 18 volcanoes, seven of them active since 1900; Mount Martin and Mount Mageik carry persistent fumaroles that steam on clear days.
Q 23What is the tallest point in the park, at 7,605 feet?
Mount Denison
Mount Denison, a 7,605-foot stratovolcano in the park's north-east, tops Mount Griggs by a few feet; Mount Katmai itself is only 6,716 feet after its summit collapsed in 1912.
Magma drained from beneath it, leaving a caldera 2,000 feet deep; a glacier has since formed inside, one of the few born in historic times.
Q 14The ash-filled valley left by the 1912 eruption became known as the Valley of what?
Ten Thousand Smokes
The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes got its name in 1916 from the countless fumaroles steaming from the cooling ash; most had died by the 1930s, and streams have since cut narrow gorges into the deposit.
Q 15How thick, at most, is the 1912 ash flow filling the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes?
About 700 feet
The 1912 ash flow buried about 40 square miles of the valley to depths from 100 feet up to about 700 feet, welding into tuff that streams have since cut into deep, narrow gorges.
Q 16The noise of the June 6, 1912 eruption was heard as far off as which city, 750 miles distant?
Juneau
The blast was heard in Juneau, 750 miles away; ash fell about a foot deep on Kodiak, 100 miles off, collapsing roofs and turning day to night there for nearly three days.
Q 17Which botanist led the National Geographic expeditions that named the steaming ash valley?
Robert Griggs
He had come to study how plants recolonised the ash; a 7,602-foot volcano in the park is now named for him.
Q 18Which president signed the proclamation creating Katmai National Monument in September 1918?
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Katmai National Monument on 24 September 1918 under the Antiquities Act, at Griggs's urging; its roughly 1 million acres were already half the size of Yellowstone.
Q 19Herbert Hoover's 1931 expansion more than doubled the monument and, crucially, added what?
The falls at Brooks Camp
Hoover's 1931 proclamation took the monument to about 2.7 million acres and, crucially, added the falls at Brooks Camp and the surrounding Naknek Lake country, protecting the bears' richest fishing grounds.
Q 20Under which 1980 law did Katmai gain its present park-and-preserve status?
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 2 December 1980 made Katmai a national park and preserve, after Jimmy Carter had added 1.37 million acres by proclamation in 1978.
Q 24Which volcanic complex in the park erupted from 1953 to 1974, adding a new southwestern peak?
Trident
Trident's eruptions from 1953 to 1974 built a new cone, Southwest Trident, on the flank of the older complex, which stands between Mount Mageik and Mount Katmai.
Q 25Where is the park's headquarters, about five miles down the Naknek River from the entrance?
King Salmon
The local highway links Naknek Lake to the town and to Naknek but not to the state road system.
Q 26What is the name of the developed area where the vast majority of Katmai visitors go?
Brooks Camp
Brooks Camp, on the shore of Naknek Lake at the mouth of the Brooks River, has the lodge, campground and the bear-viewing platforms that draw most of the park's visitors, many on day trips by floatplane.
Q 27Which body of water separates the park from Kodiak Island?
Shelikof Strait
Shelikof Strait, the stormy channel between the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island, bounds Katmai's coast, which runs some 497 miles from Kamishak Bay south to Cape Kubugakli.
Q 28Which state bear sanctuary, closed to hunting, adjoins the park at Kamishak Bay?
McNeil River
McNeil River State Game Sanctuary, created in 1967 and expanded in 1993, adjoins Katmai's northern boundary; its falls draw dozens of brown bears in July, viewed by permit lottery only.
Q 29Which bear enthusiast and his girlfriend were killed and partly eaten by a bear at Kaflia Bay, Katmai, in 2003?
Timothy Treadwell
Timothy Treadwell, who had spent 13 summers among Katmai's bears, and Amie Huguenard were killed at Kaflia Bay in October 2003; an audio recording captured the attack.
Q 30Which director made Grizzly Man, the 2005 documentary about a bear enthusiast's life and death in Katmai?
Werner Herzog
He speculated in the film about whether Treadwell had filmed the very bear that killed him.