The majority of Southeast Alaska's area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United States ' largest national forest.

The Tongass National Forest, near Ketchikan

It includes the Tongass National Forest, Glacier Bay National Park, Admiralty Island National Monument, Misty Fjords National Monument, Alaska's Inside Passage, and myriad large and small islands.

On August 20, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve, which formed the heart of the Tongass National Forest that covers most of the region.

* Tongass National Forest Muskeg Facts

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

The borough contains part of the protected areas of Chugach National Forest, Glacier Bay National Park, Glacier Bay Wilderness, Tongass National Forest, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness and the Russell Fjord Wilderness.

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

* Tongass National Forest ( part )

The Tongass National Forest

The Tongass National Forest () in southeastern Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States at 17 million acres ( 69, 000 km² ).

Another presidential proclamation made by Roosevelt, on 10 September 1907, created the Tongass National Forest.

The Tongass National Forest is home to about 75, 000 people who are dependent on the land for their livelihoods.

There are 19 designated wilderness areas within the Tongass National Forest, more than in any other National Forest.

Note: There are three other wilderness areas within the Alaska Panhandle region that are not part of Tongass National Forest, but are administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.

Also in the Panhandle, but not in Tongass National Forest, are the Glacier Bay Wilderness and a small part of the Wrangell-Saint Elias Wilderness, which are both administered by the National Park Service.

A forest path in the Tongass National Forest

Along with a region of the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia designated by environmental groups as the Great Bear Rainforest, Tongass is part of the " perhumid rainforest zone ," and the forest is primarily made up of western red cedar, sitka spruce, and western hemlock.

The entire island is part of Tongass National Forest.

The United States Forest Service administers the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center as part of Tongass National Forest.

Together with Pearse Canal and Tongass Passage, the Portland Canal is defined by the Alaska Boundary Settlement ( the Hay-Herbert Treaty ) as part of Portland Channel, a term used as forming the marine boundary in the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 but which was undefined at the time.

Also in 1856, the USS Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to nearby Port Gamble, where indigenous raiding parties made up of Haida ( from territory claimed by the British ) and Tongass ( from territory claimed by the Russians ) had been attacking and enslaving the Coast Salish people there.

The George W. Bush Administration has declined to defend the policy in the courts and the U. S. Forest Service has largely exempted the Tongass from roadless protections.

However, the Tongass remained exempt from that ruling, and it is currently unclear what the fate of its vast roadless areas will be.

In March 2011, Judge John Sedwick from the Anchorage federal district court, in his ruling, reinstated the Roadless Rule on roadless areas in the Tongass, but with three of the Forest Service's recent timber projects excluded from that ruling " without prejudice.

There is strong opposition to passage of S 881 coming from seven communities in the Tongass, most on Prince of Wales Island.

) However, the Tongass was exempted from that ruling and it is unclear what the fate of its vast roadless areas will be.

" In the same year, the group praised Chabot for offering legislation " prohibiting the Forest Service from spending taxpayer dollars to build new logging roads for private interests in the Tongass National Forest.

Ketchikan International Airport is located on Gravina Island across the Tongass Narrows ( 1 / 2 mile ) from Ketchikan and is reached by a ferry service which takes between three and seven minutes and runs at least every half-hour.

The name is a reduced form of, which is a loan from Tongass Tlingit, where it means " people of the Nass River ".

· Publicly opposed Bush Administration ’ s exemption of the Tongass National Forest from protections granted to areas without roads in the U. S. National Forests.

Located on a 17 – acre campus bordering the Tongass National Forest and the Indian River, its primary mission is the rehabilitation of sick and injured eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, and other birds of prey which are brought in from all over Alaska.

US FS Map of Tongass National Forest

* Gravina Island Bridge ( never built ), a proposed road bridge over the Tongass Narrows connecting the town of Ketchikan, Alaska to their airport, and often cited as an example of politicians ' spending on projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular constituents, and a controversial topic of the 2008 and 2012 US presidential election campaigns

Since 1980, the US Forest Service has lost over a billion dollars in Tongass timber sales.

Proponents of the amendment said that the federal timber program in Tongass is a dead loss for taxpayers, costing some $ 30 million annually, and noted that the Forest Service faces an estimated $ 900 million road maintenance backlog in the forest.

:" Because the reasons proffered by the Forest Service in support of the Tongass Exemption were implausible, contrary to the evidence in the record, and contrary to Ninth Circuit precedent, the court concludes that promulgation of the Tongass Exemption was arbitrary and capricious.

: While the Forest Service may reevaluate its approach to roadless area management in the Tongass, it must comply with the requirements of the APA in doing so.

Proponents of the amendment said that the federal timber program in Tongass is a dead loss for taxpayers, costing some $ 30 million annually, and noted that the Forest Service faces an estimated $ 900 million road maintenance backlog in the forest.

In the mid-1990s the United States Fish & Wildlife Service evaluated a petition to list this wolf species as threatened, and decided in August 1997 that a listing was not warranted, largely on the basis of provisions the Forest Service had included to protect the viability of the wolf species in its Forest Plan for the Tongass National Forest, adopted three months earlier.

In a statement to the press, a spokesman for the plaintiffs said that the errors in this lawsuit apply to every significant Tongass timber sale decision between 1996 and 2008, before the Forest Service corrected errors in the deer model when the agency issued its revised Tongass Forest Plan in 2008.