Pattern Inspiration:

This year, 2016, is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. Smart Knits - a knitting group out of Logan, Utah - thought that a great way to celebrate the National Park Service and the sublime lands that it protects was to design a National Parks blanket. The blanket is made up of 60 blanket squares - one to celebrate each of the 59 National Parks and one square to celebrate the National Park Service itself.

Alaska’s first national park, Denali National Park and Preserve encompasses over 6 million acres of taiga forest, alpine tundra, and snowy mountains in the Alaska Interior. In the summer of 1906, Vermonter Charles Sheldon made an expedition to the region to hunt and study the little-known Dall sheep. Impressed by the “beauties of the country and of the variety of the game,” Sheldon believed the area “would make an ideal park and game preserve.” He became one of the driving forces behind the establishment of a national park in 1917. Originally established as Mount McKinley National Park, the name was changed to Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980 when the park was combined with Denali National Monument. Meaning “the high one” in the native Athabaskan language, Denali refers to the highest mountain in North America, located in the heart of the park. Considered the Crown Jewel of the North, Denali National Park and Preserve is a vast wilderness where the land and its inhabitants exist as they have for ages. The designer had the opportunity to spend time at Denali National Park and Preserve in 2011 and 2012. This square features a Dall sheep ram: the creature that inspired the movement to establish one of the nation’s premier national parks.

This Pattern:

If you purchase this pattern, you will receive only the pattern for the Denali National Park blanket square. If you would like to purchase a subscription to all of the blanket squares please buy the eBook.

All proceeds from this pattern will be donated to the National Park Foundation in celebration of the National Park Service Centennial.