Visitor Center
Summer Hours (Memorial Day-Labor Day): Daily, 9am-5pm
Winter Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm

Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge has a large and ever increasing presence in the Kodiak community, with the 2007 opening of Kodiak Refuge Visitor Center in downtown Kodiak. This new facility is open year-round to the public and is the crossroads of conservation and education for Kodiak Refuge and our conservation partners. 

Our Center offers fun and educational exhibits, as well as travelling and other temporary exhibits, film festivals and artist receptions - all free and open to the public. A feature of the Center is our award-winning 12-minute orientation film, available for screening on-demand, and the re-articulated Gray whale skeleton. The Center also offers special summer interpretive programming. The Center also offers a downtown meeting space for local conservation-oriented organizations such as Audubon, Sustainable Kodiak and Whale Fest. 

Community Events
The Refuge also coordinates or participates in the following:

Kodiak Envirothon

The Refuge partners with natural resource management agencies and professionals in the Kodiak community to produce a local version of the Alaska and National Envirothon competitions for Kodiak High School Students in April each year. This day-long event features 6 stations with hands-on activities and brief test in topics such as forestry, soils, wildlife, aquatics, and current topics of conservation concern. 

Whale Fest  
This community-wide event takes place in April and celebrates the return of the gray whales to Alaskan waters. It is truly a combined effort of individuals and organizations that create this annual two week event. For details please see the Kodiak Whale Festival website.

International Migratory Bird Day  

Held annually in May, this refuge event is sponsored in conjunction with Alaska Geographic and Kodiak Audubon.

National Wildlife Refuge Week
A weeklong event sponsored by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service the second week of October. The week is full of activities such as movies, art shows, kid’s events and much more.

Refuge staff participate in other community events such as Crab Festival, Salmon Celebration, and school and village environmental education visits.