I'm planning our annual vacation and considering Alaska. My window is locked: 26 Aug - 6 Sep.  

Yeah, it's Labor Day 2017, but that's my window. 

Any thoughts/recommendations? My preference is national parks/outdoors and Katmai (bears) and Denali are leading contenders, but I'm looking for input on what's good for this window. I've never been to Alaska, so consider me the "newbie from down south".  :)

Will be a group of 4 adults who like the outdoors - and 2 of them who like photography. 

Thanks!

What is your idea of a vacation up here? or, is there specific things you want to see?  Also, are you planning on coming up and staying in hotels? or getting an RV and road tripping the state? so you understand, the two "big" cities in alaska are 357 miles apart, meaning that it takes around 8 hours to get between them. I once took 4 days to do that drive with some clients, if you can give me more ideas I can help

You might do Denali, then old McCarthy and the Kennicott mine.....also one of the glacier tours out of portage or Seward are also good...

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

The current shell of an itinerary is:

Sat - Fly in to Anchorage
Sun - Drive to Sewall (stopping at interesting sights/places along the way)
Mon - Boat in Kenai Fjords; helicopter tour of glaciers; drive to Anchorage
Tue - Drive to Independence Mine, explore the park; drive the Hatcher Pass/Willow Fishhook Road, then drive to Talkeetna
Wed - Drive to Denali
Thu - Denali
Fri - Drive to Fairbanks (stopping at interesting sights/place along the way)
Sat - Fly home from Fairbanks

The current challenge for us is lodging in Denali. We want to get to Wonder Lake and there are a couple lodging outfits in near there, but their prices all seem to hover around $500 (or more)/night/person - and the wife is not enthused about spending $2000 for two nights. Camping at Wonder Lake Campground might be an option, but gear, packs, etc. would add logistical challenges when we're planning hotels for all the other nights.

Have any of you taken flights into Kantishna? I'm thinking air charter might be a better option.

The drive from Denali to Fairbanks has relatively few attractions.  You can get from Denali to Fairbanks in 3-4 hours.  From there, you could head out and check out Chena Hot Springs Resort (about an hour drive out of town from Fairbanks).  There are hiking trails along the way and spotting wildlife from the road is fairly common.  At the end of the road there is a resort with a natural hot spring that you can swim in.  

There are a lot of other beautiful lakes in Alaska that don't come with all of the restrictions of Wonder Lake.  Denali is an extremely regulated tourist attraction...

Call Deltana Outfitters in Delta Junction.  Tell them what you want to do, they'll put together a trip into the real outdoors that will blow any 12 hour bus ride in Denali (stopping to see every living thing that moves) out of the water.

Thanks for the additional tips!  :)