Welcome to the Park of the Week Newsletter for December 7, 2023. This week’s park is the largest national forest in the United States.
Tongass National Forest
Location
Southeast Alaska, United States
Claim to fame
At 16.7 million acres, the Tongass National Forest is the largest national forest in the US. It encompasses about 80% of Southeast Alaska, a coastal strip of sparsely populated wilderness.
The Tongass is one of the largest intact temperate rainforests in the world, with some of its trees more than 800 years old. Old growth temperate rainforests contain the most biomass of any ecosystem on Earth, even more than tropical rainforests. This means that the Tongass is a major sink for carbon–storing 44% of all US National Forest carbon.
The Tongass was founded in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian peoples have lived in the region for thousands of years. The forest is named for the Tongass or “Sea Lion Clan” of the Tlingit.
Reason to visit
The Tongass National Forest encompasses some of the most lush, verdant, and wild scenery in the United States. This rainforest is carpeted with moss and decorated with colorful lichens. Trees line the rough Pacific coast and stud the sides of its rugged mountains.
These massive trees also shade the creeks and rivers that spawn salmon. The trees cool inland waters, providing a perfect habitat for salmon and their young. And when the salmon die, their bodies feed not only the bears, eagles, and other fish-eaters but also the forests themselves. The salmon bring ocean nutrients into the forest ecosystem, strengthening the trees so that they provide even more shade for the salmon. The Tongass is an example of a perfectly balanced ecosystem.
Because it’s rich biodiversity the Tongass provides countless opportunities for recreation. People come from all over the world to fish the forest’s salmon, boat its coastal waters to sight whales, hike it’s trails, and sled across its glaciers. Mendenhall Glacier, a stunning blue river of ice in the heart of Juneau, is one of the forest’s most popular attractions.
Wild Fact
The Tongass National Forest is logged. More than 1 million acres of the forest has been clearcut, and an estimated half its old-growth trees have been downed.
But it’s expensive to log here, given the remote and mountainous nature of the terrain. Not only does the Forest Service not make a profit from the sale of Tongass timber, they operate at a massive loss. An independent, non-partisan study by Taxpayers for Common Sense found that logging the Tongass cost the US Forest Service 1.7 billion dollars over the last four decades.
And the logging industry provides few jobs to Southeast Alaskans, supporting only 1% of the local economy. The fishing and tourist industries, which depend on a healthy, intact forest ecosystem, make up 26% of the local economy. The Tongass and its tree-lined streams also account for 25% of all West Coast Salmon.
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