The Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest is Vital for Both Hunters and Brown Bears

There’s a long history of Alaskan hunting guides stepping up to protect the Tongass. In the mid-1980s an old, dying bear hunter named Ralph Young sat in the back of a skiff, squinting through the rain at the ocean and mountains of Southeast Alaska. In the bow, huddled against the wind and rain, sat a teenager named Klas Stolpe. The two would be out for a month or two, until most of the salmon had spawned and the bears had left the streams for the high country. The old man didn’t especially enjoy the kid’s company but, due his to declining health and old age, he needed his help for basic things like getting in and out of the boat. They motored past once pristine bays, where years ago the old man guided legendary hunters like Warren Page and Jack O’Connor. Now, those lands were clear-cut logged. He pointed the skiff toward Admiralty Island, the heart of rainforest grizzly country, and opened the outboard’s throttle. Young was making his last journey into the wilds of the Tongass National Forest. Established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, the Tongass is nearly 26,500 square miles of temperate rainforest, mountains and glaciers. Roosevelt, during his first year of presidency, unsuccessfully campaigned for Admiralty, Chichagof, and Baranof Islands, which compose most of the northern third of the Tongass, to be turned into a brown bear preserve. The President loved hunting bears and, believing that America could have both economic development and wilderness, saw the incredible opportunity the Tongass offered for hunters and for preserving a piece of the nation’s wild heritage.