Trees Do Better Standing Up
Southeast Alaskans are on the front line of the fight to protect the Tongass National Forest from logging.
My time in the Tongass began in September of 1997鈥攏inety years almost to the day after Theodore Roosevelt designated it a national forest. I was 19 and left Columbia University to take a Greyhound west, ending up in Sitka, an Alaskan fishing village, working in a salmon hatchery.
To save money on housing, I walked about 20 minutes into the world鈥檚 largest intact temperate rainforest, staking a bumble-bee yellow North Face VE 25 in a grove of Sitka spruce and stringing up a corridor of tarps. When winter came on, I鈥檇 return to my tent to find my olive oil clouded from cold. As I heated it on the camp stove, the rich, musty scent of pink salmon rotting along the riverbanks behind my tent rose up. I zipped my sleeping bag, bunched a fleece for a pillow and listened to the thick, seaborne snowflakes catching in the spruce needles as I fell asleep with a canister of industrial-strength bear spray cradled beneath an arm.
Just before Thanksgiving, in a fit of city-boy ineptitude, I burned down the vestibule of my tent while priming my stove. With the chocolate-brown tarp dragging behind me like a blanket, I relocated up Indian River, building a hut from hemlock saplings felled with a handsaw. In the evenings, I stashed my bike in a clutch of salmonberry bushes, hopscotched across river stones and learned to pick chanterelles, unearth licorice root for tea and make fires in the rain. With a pocketknife, I scraped amber spruce sap from trunks and collected old-man鈥檚 beard from muskeg dwarf pines for starter. Eight months I lived like this, raising fish at the salmon hatchery and writing for the聽Daily Sitka Sentinel.
When I tell my daughter Haley Marie, 4, about these days, she scrunches up her nose. 鈥淲hat about bears?鈥� A reasonable question on Baranof Island, where 1,500 grizzlies roam about, compared to about seven times as many people. 鈥淭hey had their space,鈥� I say.
A total of 16.7 million acres of it, to be exact.
When I show her a map of the Tongass, where we live鈥攁 mossy green expanse stretching across Alaska鈥檚 southeastern panhandle, home to Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian tribes for over 10,000 years鈥攕he drops a finger on Sitka, one of 32 communities spread throughout the forest.
If the Rockies and Sierra form wildlife corridors, then the Tongass is the ballroom these corridors lead to. It鈥檚 an archipelago of ice fields, forest and fjords, where snow-capped mountains jut up from the sea at dizzying angles and the chortle of ravens and scritch of bald eagles careen off cliffs dappled with burrows of tufted puffins. Over half the Tongass is made up of forest鈥擲itka spruce, western hemlock and red and yellow cedar. Trees are knit together by a vast underground network of roots that feed on nutrients left from some of the most prolific salmon runs remaining in the world.
And this is where the Tongass really bends the mind.
欧博会员入口 think of a forest as an ecosystem where animals eat plants. Here, it鈥檚 the other way around: The trees eat the animals.
Each fall, mature salmon return to the shaded rivers, spawn and die. Just as the rivers provide a nursery for the next generation of salmon fry, the rotting carcasses of the mamas and papas create a stew of nutrients along the riverbanks, returning nitrogen-15, a particular ingredient found almost exclusively in the marine web, back to the trees. The spruce, hemlock and cedar in the valley, fed by the salmon, grow at absurd speeds, and the cedar can live up to a millenium. In fact, biologists have learned to track the density of annual fish runs by examining the growth rings of Sitka spruce. 鈥淭he salmon鈥檚 spawning history is literally being written in the library of the forest,鈥� writes Canadian television host Ziya Tong in her book,聽The Reality Bubble.
Since the arrival of Russians in the 18th century, the axe has been the preferred method of engagement with these trees. Russians cut down choice trees for construction of boats and buildings while the Americans began clear-cutting on an industrial scale in the 1950s, when the timber bonanza began in earnest. After the United States granted timber companies carte blanche in the Tongass, logging companies went up river valleys in search of 鈥減umpkins鈥濃攂ehemoth giant spruce, hemlocks and cedar鈥攖hat they toppled, chipped and sluiced into multistory pressure vessels. The chips were then mixed with acid, cooked, dried and pressed into sheets of pure-white pulp to be baled for export, on their way to becoming newsprint, cellophane and fluff-puff鈥攖he material used in disposable diapers. Salmon returning to native streams found their en- trances choked with soil. Bears lost their dens. The forest floor, accustomed to only 20 percent of natural light reaching the soil through the canopy of needles, broiled in the sun.
Then in 2001, largely in response to rampant clear-cutting, President Bill Clinton signed the Roadless Area Conservation Rule with just eight days of his term remaining. With a signature, he closed the Tongass, along with national forests across the country, to roadbuilding. Influenced by his knowledge from developing a previous compromise between the timber industry and environmentalists in Oregon, Clinton argued that, along with leading to increased pollution, land erosion and species loss, national forests were already webbed with enough roads: 386,000 miles of them, enough to encircle the globe 15 times. The Forest Service, charged with maintaining the roads after the timber companies completed their clear-cuts, couldn鈥檛 keep up.
Timber companies were hamstrung. Without being able to bulldoze roads to the remaining 165,000 acres of old-growth forest in the Tongass, their saw blades spun to a halt. George W. Bush worked to strike down Clinton鈥檚 rule as his first act as president鈥攂ut in 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the rule. In 2012, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and the Tongass has been closed to roads since.
Cue Donald Trump.
Last February, Air Force One touched down in Anchorage to refuel on the way back from Vietnam. Republican Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy took advantage of the stopover to ask President Donald Trump if he would consider a full exemption of the Tongass from Clinton鈥檚 rule, opening the forest to logging.

Southeast Alaskans take to the steps of the Alaska State Capitol Building in Juneau in support of the Roadless Rule. Colin Arisman
The previous fall, over 90 percent of Southeast Alaskans commenting during a Forest Service 鈥渟coping鈥� period were in favor of keeping the Tongass roadless. Tribal leaders joined hunters and commercial fishermen to patiently explain to folks from Washington how the region鈥檚 economy, after years of stagnation, was finally getting back on its feet with the help of tourism and commercial fishing鈥攊ndustries dependent on an intact forest. The Forest Service, which refers internally to the Tongass as its 鈥渃rown jewel,鈥� needed to protect its jewels because without trees and streams, the salmon, a wickedly fickle fish, would disappear鈥攋ust as it had in Scandinavia, Ireland, Scotland, France, England, 欧博会员入口stern Europe, America鈥檚 Eastern Seaboard, California and the Pacific Northwest. Maybe we shouldn鈥檛 let it happen in Alaska, community members said. And that meant not clear-cutting salmon habitat.
As far as tourism went, travelers to Southeast Alaska expected to witness one of the last wild landscapes on Earth鈥攖hey certainly weren鈥檛 paying money to come to Alaska to find moonscapes pocked with stumps. Tour- ism creates around 10,000 jobs in the region, contributing about a billion dollars annually to the region, and commercial fishing just about doubles this. Meanwhile, the logging industry provides about 200 jobs for Southeast Alaska and has cost American taxpayers about $30 million annually in government subsidies for the past 20 years.
But after his Air Force One meeting with Dunleavy (Trump affectionately calls the 6-foot-7 governor 鈥渢he big guy鈥�), the president directed Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to disregard the comments and begin work immediately on preparing the Tongass for a full exemption from the Roadless Rule. In a now-notorious video uploaded onto Twitter, Trump can be heard on speakerphone telling Republican Alaska senator Dan Sullivan how 鈥渢hat鈥檚 moving along.鈥� Governor Dunleavy enters the frame wearing wraparound sunglasses and smiling sheepishly with his hands deep in his own pockets. A half-finished Alaskan Icy Bay IPA sits on the deck behind the men.
In October, it became official: The federal government published its Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which announced its preference for exempting the Tongass from the Roadless Rule. At the time of writing, the USDA was initiating its 60-day comment period, inviting Alaskans to once again speak out on the Tongass. (For all the good it did the first time.) The Secretary of Agriculture is expected to make a final decision in June 2020 and roadbuilding could begin in the summer.
鈥淚t鈥檚 unbelievable. A throwback to the 鈥�80s and 鈥�90s,鈥� says Wanda 鈥淜ashudoha鈥� Culp, a Tongass regional coordinator for the Women鈥檚 Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). Culp grew up in Juneau but moved in 2009 to the largely Tlingit village of Hoonah, about 70 miles to the southwest of Juneau, on Chichagof Island. 鈥淚t鈥檚 history repeating itself in a way that harms Native villages and the forest we have depended on for millennia.鈥�

Over the past century, clear-cut logging has changed the landscape of the Tongass. Now, locals are fighting to protect what is left of their old-growth forests. Colin Arisman
Roads connect a patchwork of clear-cuts above Culp鈥檚 town. Each summer, Rebekah Sawers, Adrien Lee and Culp鈥攁ll members of WECAN鈥攗se one of these roads to drive out to Freshwater Bay to help put on Culture Camp, a weeklong experience where children and teenagers learn to dig for clams and cockles, pick wild strawberries and smoke salmon. The camp is supported in part by the Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP), a network of organizations committed to the economy, ecology and culture of Southeast Alaska. 鈥溑凡┗嵩比肟阝檙e bringing kids out to do this work in a place that was cut once,鈥� Lee said. 鈥淭he forest is just beginning to heal. And now we have this.鈥�
Brent Cole, who spent nine seasons on Alaska logging crews before starting Alaska Specialty Woods, a company that uses salvaged timber to make soundboards for guitar tops, depends on Sitka spruce for his business. 鈥溑凡┗嵩比肟� have wood in the Southeast, good wood,鈥� Cole said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the type of high grade you want for the mast of your sailboat, the wing spars for your airplane or your guitar soundboard. What we set out to do is add value locally. It just has to be used right.鈥�
Dawn Jackson, whose Tlingit name is Kaaxwaan, lives in the Tlingit village of Kake. She agrees with Cole that a certain amount of logging makes sense. 鈥淚 mean, it鈥檚 important to our community. 欧博会员入口 don鈥檛 hate loggers. It鈥檚 more about just not taking everything.鈥�
Jackson鈥檚 son Shawaan, 22, studies at Canada鈥檚 欧博会员入口stern University and works with the Keex鈥� Kwaan Community Forest Partnership, also part of SSP. The Keex鈥� Kwaan partnership protects hundreds of active salmon watersheds and encourages small-scale logging. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about responsible use of the resources,鈥� Shawaan said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 performing rotational forestry, thinning and habitat restoration. Just treating the land right.鈥�
People in favor of completely opening the Tongass, such as Alaska鈥檚 former governor Frank Murkowski, argue that it鈥檚 possible to treat the land right while also building roads that could provide access for renewable energy projects as well as timber and mining exploration. As Murkowski pointed out in his September opinion piece in the Anchorage Daily News, there are so few timber jobs in the region because of the Roadless Rule that lifting it would be a boom to the local economy.
Andrew Thoms, executive editor of the Sitka Conservation Society, disagrees.
鈥淭here鈥檚 this idea floating around that building roads and logging has brought prosperity. In fact, it鈥檚 done just the opposite. It鈥檚 the boom-and-bust economy, money going out of state. Liquor stores, short-term profit. It鈥檚 not sustainable.鈥�
As it happens, when she鈥檚 not working summers with Culp at Culture Camp, Lee has a job at the liquor store in Hoonah. With the number of fishermen and tourists buying liquor, she can鈥檛 see how logging would make anything better. 鈥淚t makes no sense. The forest provides more resources by just being here than by logging it. The Roadless Rule is working for us. It鈥檚 working for Alaska.鈥�
Last April, Sawers, Lee, Culp and Kari Ames, all members of WECAN, traveled to Washington, DC, to visit congressional offices and testify about the importance of keeping the Tongass roadless. They spoke about the forest in terms of a cultural legacy but also as the Lower 48鈥檚 most substantial method of carbon sequestration鈥攖he forest is a robust set of lungs holding an estimated 8 percent of all the carbon stored in US national forests.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just difficult for people to imagine a forest like that,鈥� Culp said. 鈥淪o we did our best to bring it to them.鈥� The four Indigenous women played drums, dressed in ceremonial capes and told stories reflecting millennia of knowledge of the Tongass鈥攃ompared to fewer than 300 years of colonial presence. 鈥淥ur purpose was to let the official authorities know that our senator Lisa Murkowski was lying when she avowed to her colleagues that Alaskans want the Roadless Rule weakened.鈥�
After building my hut along Indian River, I finished college, then returned to Southeast Alaska to fish commercially. I joined Alaska Carpenters Local 1281 and worked reroofing schools and building forms for shopping malls. I met my wife in a Cuban salsa class in Sitka. My fishing captain married us, and my wife and I raised our daughter on the World War II tugboat where I had been living, built from old-growth Douglas fir and heated by two woodstoves I installed. At night, I鈥檇 sing 鈥淵ou Are My Sunshine鈥� to Haley while Rachel fed the woodstoves with hemlock I bucked up, orange splits we called 鈥渘ight wood鈥� because it burned so slow and hot.
欧博会员入口 have a second daughter now, and Haley鈥檚 old enough to have her own deer-skinning knife. Sometimes when I鈥檓 out walking the overgrown logging roads hunting for Sitka black-tailed deer, I run my hands over the veins of hemlock bark and the violet chips of Sitka spruce. I swear if you set a palm on the trunk, you can feel the salmon, luminescent in the sapwood, swimming inside those trees. Hunter, prey, life, death鈥攖he distinctions recede. For a moment, the fish, the trees, the deer and me standing there鈥攚e鈥檙e all part of the same extended family.
When I explain to Haley the concept of salmon forests, she tips her head at me the way she does when she鈥檚 giving something serious consideration. 欧博会员入口鈥檙e building bookshelves in our house from a Tongass yellow cedar that was struck by lightning and I flitched up with a chainsaw. She鈥檚 hard at work with the orbital sander, running the pad over the surface.
Finally, creasing her brow, she tells me, 鈥淒ad, I think the trees do better standing up.鈥�
Update January 2023: In October 2020, the Trump administration removed Roadless Rule protections from the Tongass National Forest. Since then, the US Forest Service (USFS) under the Biden administration has taken steps toward restoring protections to the Tongass. During a public comment period required for reinstatement, over a quarter million comments were submitted, with 96 percent in favor of keeping the Roadless Rule. Though the Roadless Rule has yet to be officially reinstated, the USFS is expected to release their final decision in early 2023.
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