Features

  • Forest Road 80 Fall Rotator

    Commercial Forestry

    Response to Commercial Forest Management Compatibility Determination

    Read the response

  • Hunters in silhouette - USFWS.

    Hunting on the Refuge

    Visit the hunt page for information on our current hunting procedures, and how to register game.

    Hunting page

Around the Refuge

Public Events

Interpretation on the refuge

There are events for the whole family year-round at Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Check out our calendar for a list of upcoming events.

Events Calendar

Get Involved

Young volunteers on the refuge - USFWS.

There are many ways to get involved at Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, from helping out with Wild School Day to planting trees for our forest restoration projects. Visit our Get Involved page to learn more.

Get Involved

Visitor Activities

Youth doing photography on the refuge - USFWS.

There are activities year-round at Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge including wildlife viewing, cross-country skiing, hunting, photography and environmental education. Learn more on our Visitor Activities page.

Visitor Activities
Updates

Updates on the new multi-use facility

Wetlands Promo

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received funding in 2018 to build a new administrative facility at Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Tucker County, W.V., which will house the staff of the West Virginia Field Office and the West Virginia Office of Law Enforcement in the future. For updates on planning and construction, visit our website dedicated to that project.

Multi-use facility at Canaan Valley website

History

Land of Canaan

Tracking an enormous black bear one morning in the mid 1700s, George Casey Harness came to a spot, “on the western slope of the Alleghenies which overlooked a wide, well-watered, wooded and grassy valley. The breathtaking beauty of the wild valley so impressed young Harness that he involuntarily cried out, ‘Behold! The Land of Canaan!’”* This story is but one of the ways that the valley may have gotten its name. *Quoted from Jack Preble’s book Land of Canaan, (1960, McClain Printing Company, p.1)

Refuge History

About the NWRS

National Wildlife Refuge System

NWRS Logo

The National Wildlife Refuge System, within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, manages a national network of lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife, and plants.

Learn more about the NWRS
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