Tongass National Forest

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LOCATION:

Approximately 17 million acres

SPECIES:
Black & brown bears, wolves, bald eagles, Sitka black-tailed deer, moose, humpback whales, orcas, sea otters, Steller sea lions

FISH ON ICE:
Tongass waters house 128 glaciers; all 5 species of Pacific salmon.

TRANSLATE:
“Kootznoowoo” Wilderness was named by the indigenous Tlingit people and translates to “Bear Fort” or “Fortress of the Bears.”

Learn More
Educator Tools
Tongass NF Map
Share Your Story
Tongass Economics
Wild salmon recipes

WILDERNESS GREAT:

Misty Fjords Nat. Monument Wilderness at 2.1 million acres.

WILDERNESS SMALL:
Maurelle Islands Wilderness is a mere 4,937 acres.

LOCATION: Approximately 17 million acres	SPECIES: Black & brown bears, wolves, bald eagles, Sitka black-tailed deer, moose, humpback whales, orcas, sea otters, Steller sea lions
FISH ON ICE: Tongass waters house 128 glaciers; all 5 species of Pacific salmon.
WILDERNESS GREAT: Misty Fjords Nat. Monument Wilderness at 2.1 million acres.	WILDERNESS SMALL: Maurelle Islands Wilderness is a mere 4,937 acres.
TRANSLATE: “Kootznoowoo” Wilderness was named by the indigenous Tlingit people and translates to “Bear Fort” or “Fortress of the Bears.”

Learn More
Educator Tools
Tongass NF Map
Share Your Story
Tongass Economics
Wild salmon recipes

At approximately 17 million acres, the Tongass National Forest is America’s largest national forest, encompassing the majority of the southeast Alaska Panhandle. Rising from the deep, rich waters of Alaska’s Inside Passage, southeast Alaska is a land of ancient forests, mountains and glaciers.

Decades of clear-cutting has cost the Tongass portions of its best habitat, and yet the forest still contains some of the most intact expanses of temperate rainforest remaining in the world. It is home to five species of Pacific salmon, humpback and orca whales, otters, beavers, Alexander Archipelago wolves, plus some of the largest concentrations of brown bears and bald eagles found in the United States. Its giant old-growth trees are also a warehouse of carbon, helping regulate the planet’s climate.

Have you visited the Tongass?

The International League of Conservation Photographer’s 1Frame4Nature is a collection of images and stories from around the globe of your personal connection to nature. However small, when combined with the actions of others, your individual actions can impact real and tangible outcomes for the preservation of our planet. Check out iLCP Fellow Amy Gulick’s 1Frame4Nature on the Tongass National Forest!

People and the Tongass National Forest

Alaska Natives have continuously inhabited southeast Alaska and the Tongass for thousands of years, depending on the bounty of salmon, deer and moose for subsistence. The first nations include the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian, and the forest itself is named for the Tongass group of the Tlingit people, who inhabited the southernmost areas of southeast Alaska, near what is now the city of Ketchikan. Dependence on the land is still a way of life here, a cultural tradition as well as a necessity, made possible by the abundance of fish and wildlife in the region.

Today, the Tongass is home to approximately 70,000 people spread among 32 communities, including approximately 32,000 in the state capital of Juneau. The region is often referred to as the “Inside Passage” or the gateway to Alaska, and is defined by its primary industries with commercial fishing, tourism and recreation jobs among the fastest growing job sectors in southeast Alaska. These industries pump approximately $1 billion apiece into southeast Alaska’s economy annually and support approximately 7,200 jobs (fishing) and 10,000 jobs (tourism) respectively.

Featured Wildlife: Brown Bear

Average life span: 25 years in the wild

Height (four legs): 3.5 feet (Alaska Kodiak up to 5 feet)

Height (two legs): 6-7 feet (Alaska Kodiak up to 10 feet)

Weight: 300-850 lbs. males, 200-450 lbs. females; Alaska Kodiak bears can weigh more than 1,000 lbs.

Brown Bear versus Grizzly Bear: So which term is correct? The answer is: all grizzlies are brown bears, but not all brown bears are grizzlies. The grizzly is a North American subspecies of brown bear. Although the correct scientific name for a grizzly is “brown bear,” only coastal bears in Alaska and Canada are generally referred to as brown bears, while inland and Arctic bears and those found in the Lower 48 are called grizzly bears.

Product of Alaska: Brown bears are more numerous in the state of Alaska than anywhere else in America. There are an estimated 30,000 bears there, about 95% of the entire population in the United States. Kootznoowoo Wilderness, located within the Admiralty Island National Monument in the Tongass National Forest, gets its name from the indigenous people of southeast Alaska, the Tlingit.

Kootznoowoo means “Bear Fort” or “Fortress of the Bears,” and its forests contain the highest concentration of brown bears in the world.