National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in the context of "White Mountains National Recreation Area"

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157 million acres (640,000 km) of land, including national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, wild and scenic rivers, recreational areas, national forests, and conservation areas. It was, and remains to date, the single largest expansion of protected lands in history and more than doubled the size of the National Park System.

The Act provided for 43.585 million acres (176,380 km) of new national parklands in Alaska; the addition of 9.8 million acres (40,000 km) to the National Wildlife Refuge System; twenty-five wild and scenic rivers, with twelve more to be studied for that designation; establishment of Misty Fjords and Admiralty Island National Monuments in Southeast Alaska; establishment of Steese National Conservation Area and White Mountains National Recreation Area to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management; the addition of 9.1 million acres (37,000 km) to the Wilderness Preservation System, and the addition of 3.35 million acres (13,600 km) to Tongass and Chugach National Forests.

The Middle Fork Kings River is a 37.2-mile (59.9 km) tributary of the Kings River in Kings Canyon National Park, California, in the southern Sierra Nevada. Draining 318 square miles (820 km) – almost all of it wilderness – the Middle Fork is one of the largest wholly undeveloped watersheds in the state, with no dams or paved roads within its basin. The entire length of the Middle Fork is designated a National Wild and Scenic River.

The Kern River is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately 165 miles (270 km) long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfield. Fed by snowmelt near Mount Whitney, the river passes through scenic canyons in the mountains and is a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking. It is the southernmost major river system in the Sierra Nevada, and is the only major river in the Sierra that drains in a southerly direction.

The Kern River formerly emptied into the now dry Buena Vista Lake and Kern Lake via the Kern River Slough, and Kern Lake in turn emptied into Buena Vista Lake via the Connecting Slough at the southern end of the Central Valley. Buena Vista Lake, when overflowing, first backed up into Kern Lake and then upon rising higher drained into Tulare Lake via Buena Vista Slough and a changing series of sloughs of the Kern River. The lakes were part of a partially endorheic basin that sometimes overflowed into the San Joaquin River. This basin also included the Kaweah and Tule Rivers, as well as southern distributaries of the Kings River that all flowed into Tulare Lake.

The Nowitna River is a 250-mile (400 km) tributary of the Yukon River in the U.S. state of Alaska. The river flows northeast from the Kuskokwim Mountains through Nowitna National Wildlife Refuge and enters the larger river 38 miles (61 km) northeast of Ruby and southwest of Tanana. Major tributaries include the Titna, Big Mud, Little Mud, Lost, and Sulatna rivers.

In 1980, the 225 miles (362 km) of the river within the wildlife refuge were designated "wild" and added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The designation means that most of the Nowitna is unpolluted, free-flowing, and generally inaccessible except by trail.

The Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway is a federally protected system of riverways located in eastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin. It protects 252 miles (406 km) of river, including the St. Croix River (on the Wisconsin/Minnesota border), and the Namekagon River (in Wisconsin), as well as adjacent land along the rivers. The St. Croix National Scenic Riverway is one of the original eight National Wild and Scenic Rivers, largely as a result of legislation by senators Walter Mondale of Minnesota and Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. The largest scenic riverway east of the Mississippi River, it lies within parts of eight counties in Wisconsin: Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, Pierce, Polk, St. Croix, Sawyer, and Washburn; and three in Minnesota: Chisago, Pine, and Washington.