Walk the tunnel under DeBarr Road at Russian Jack Springs Park this summer and you will hear the work before you see it. A chainsaw somewhere past the tree line. The beep of equipment backing up near the Lidia Selkregg Chalet. Regulars who have used this park for years know the sound of routine mowing and trail grooming. This is not that. Anchorage Parks and Recreation crews are in the middle of the largest set of physical changes Russian Jack Springs Park has seen since the current chalet went up in 1983, and most of the work points at one goal: making the park's north and south sides finally function like a single park instead of two that happen to share a name.
The park has always split at DeBarr Road
DeBarr Road cuts straight through the middle of Russian Jack Springs Park's 324 acres, and that road has quietly shaped how people actually use the place. North of DeBarr is where you find the skate park (Anchorage's first in-ground concrete skate park, built in 2016) and the Polar Bear Playground, home to a large polar bear play structure known to neighborhood kids as Nola. South of DeBarr is a different world entirely: the Dr. Lidia Selkregg Chalet, the par-3 golf course, the Mann Leiser Memorial Greenhouse, the disc golf course, and the sledding hill.
For decades, the only real link between the two halves has been a single paved tunnel and the Lighted Loop trail. If you start on one side and want to reach the golf course, greenhouse, or chalet on the other, you either loop around on surface streets or take the tunnel and hope you know where you're going once you pop out the other end. That disconnect is exactly what this year's construction is aimed at fixing.
What's actually different this construction season
Five separate projects are underway or recently finished, and they share a pattern: each one shortens the distance, in time or in confusion, between the park's two sides.
| Project | What's Changing | Where in the Park |
|---|---|---|
| Dual slalom course and green flow trail | New beginner-friendly mountain bike features added to the singletrack network | Trail network |
| Chalet bridge replacement | The old wooden bridge near the chalet is being swapped for a 40-foot steel bridge, and the T-intersection there is being realigned into a Y | South of DeBarr, near the chalet |
| Chalet plaza and deck rebuild | The existing deck is being demolished and rebuilt in composite decking; the golf course's first tee is shifting 80 feet southeast to make room | South of DeBarr, chalet grounds |
| Nunaka Valley spur lighting | New trail lighting is being added to the spur that runs under Boniface Parkway into Nunaka Valley | Boniface Parkway edge |
| Sledding hill safety work | Trees are being cleared from a 0.4-acre section of the runout zone, and one light fixture is being relocated outside the sledding lane | Near the chalet |
Alaska Trails, the nonprofit involved in the work, has said most of the park's trail system stays open during construction, though visitors should expect active work zones and posted closures in specific spots rather than a park-wide shutdown.
The Nunaka Valley lighting project is the one worth sitting with if that neighborhood is your neighborhood. Right now, getting from Nunaka Valley into Russian Jack Springs Park after dark means either a long walk around or skipping the trip. A lit spur trail under Boniface Parkway turns that into a short, well-lit connection instead. That is a genuinely different relationship between a residential neighborhood and a city park, not just a cosmetic upgrade.
Where the money actually came from
None of this happened because a single grant showed up. It happened because Anchorage voters approved six separate park bonds between 2019 and 2024, ranging from $200,000 to $600,000 apiece, plus a 2022 state grant of just over $37,000. Add those up alongside a 2024 federal Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership grant of $621,000, and the Municipality's own tracking page puts total development costs for the master plan and the 2024 bridge and trail phase at roughly $1.3 million.
That 2024 phase is worth naming directly because it gives the current work a baseline. Back then, crews rehabilitated 2,800 linear feet of the Lighted Loop trail and installed a 65-foot steel bridge over the middle fork of Chester Creek. The bridge going in near the chalet this year is smaller, 40 feet instead of 65, because it is solving a different problem: not a creek crossing, but a confusing intersection that has sent trail traffic the wrong way for years.
The bond-by-bond funding history explains why this all feels like it is landing at once. Anchorage residents have been voting yes on small Russian Jack line items for the better part of a decade without necessarily connecting them to a finished project. In 2026, several of those approvals are converging into visible, on-the-ground change in the same construction season, which is why the park feels more torn up right now than it has in years, and why it should feel more connected once the dust settles.
What isn't changing
It is worth saying plainly that the park's daily-use amenities are still running. The golf course still operates on a walk-on basis, no tee times, typically from noon to 8 p.m., with rates around $8 for the 9-hole course. The disc golf course, also 9 holes, still charges roughly $8 a round. The off-leash dog area in the northeast corner is untouched by any of the current projects. The greenhouse and the small train museum run by the Northern Lights Model Railroad Club, tucked into a former assistant warden's house from the park's prison farm days, are both still open to visitors. And the park's connections to the Lanie Fleischer Chester Creek Trail and the Ship Creek Trail bike boulevard remain exactly where they've always been.
Anchorage's broader trail investment gave the city a 2026 Trail Town designation from the International Mountain Bicycling Association this year, alongside recognition as a Runner Friendly Community, and the Russian Jack work is part of that same push rather than an isolated project. You can read more about that citywide context on Visit Anchorage's own rundown of what's new for 2026.
How to actually use the park this fall
A few practical notes for anyone planning to be in and around Russian Jack Springs Park over the next several weeks:
- Expect fencing and equipment near the chalet through the fall. When the park replaced its last bridge in 2024, that work stretched past summer and into the season's cooler weeks, and there is no reason to think this smaller bridge project will move faster.
- If a trail is posted closed, take it seriously rather than routing around the fencing. Most of the park stays open during this phase, but the closed sections are closed for a reason, usually heavy equipment or an active tree removal zone.
- Golfers should expect the first tee to be in a slightly different spot than usual once the plaza work wraps, about 80 feet southeast of where it's always been. The course itself is not closing.
- Sledders will notice a thinner tree line at the base of the hill once the safety work finishes. That is intentional. The runout zone has had a light fixture and mature vegetation combination that Parks and Recreation flagged as a real hazard, and re-grading the whole hill was ruled out as too costly and too risky, so the fix is narrower: clear a 0.4-acre buffer and move one light.
- Nunaka Valley residents should watch for the new lighting on the Boniface Parkway spur. Once it's in, that route becomes a genuinely usable after-dark connection rather than one you'd only take in daylight.
None of this changes what Russian Jack Springs Park is. It is still the same 324-acre stretch of East Anchorage with a dog park, a par-3 course, a sledding hill, and a greenhouse that smells like summer in the middle of January. What is changing is how well the park's two halves actually talk to each other, after years of small funding votes finally showing up on the ground in the same season.
If you're in the neighborhoods this park touches, whether that's Russian Jack itself, Nunaka Valley, or the streets nearby, and you ever want a local's read on what's happening in the area beyond the trail reports, Sam Lightle is happy to talk it through.
