Planned Alaska route Erin McKittrick, M.S., Director1, Bretwood "Hig" Higman, PhD, Executive Director2 Last Modified: 22nd November 2010 [email protected] Author's Note (2010): This article was researched and written in 2007 as part of the preparation for our year-long Journey on the Wild Coast. This map outlines a portion of our proposed route (which we more-or-less followed) and the text describes many of these places in more detail. See the current version of our website here, where we discuss a variety of natural resources issues affecting the state of Alaska. Prospective route through Southeastern and Central Alaska Click on the map to read about a specific place, or scroll down to go through our route in order. Ketchikan - September 2007 This city of 8,000 people is the fifth largest in Alaska. Ketchikan is a long and narrow place, stretched out along the steep coastline of the nearly unpronounceable Revillagigedo Island (Revilla). In the summer, Ketchikan is a popular stop on Ketchikan is behind the cruise the cruise ship circuit, where boatloads of tourists can ships double the city's population each day. Ketchikan briefly hit the national stage in 2005 during the "Bridges to Nowhere" controversy, when a $223 million appropriation was placed in the federal highway bill to build a bridge from Ketchikan to nearby Gravina Island, home of the Ketchikan airport and about 50 people. In the winter, the tourists leave, and Ketchikan residents are left with their annual 152 inches (3862mm) of rain. Ketchikan was founded in 1900 as a gold mining town, and many old mine sites remain nearby. http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/WildCoast/LongTrekPlanAKMap.html Creative Commons Attribution Non- 1Erin McKittrick, M.S., Director; Commercial 2Bretwood "Hig" Higman, PhD, Executive Director; [email protected] Page 1 of 11 Misty Fiords National Monument - September 2007 At the southern tip of the Alaska panhandle, east of Ketchikan, and part of the Tongass National Forest, the Misty Fiords (or Misty Fjords) National Monument encompasses over 2 million acres of steep rainforest fjords. Glaciers have carved the granite rock into nearly vertical fjords, where waterfalls pour into the ocean from the hanging valleys above. Every slope that's not vertical rock is covered in a dense rainforest of cedar, spruce, and hemlock. Orcas cruise the main waterway of Behm Canal, while the harbor seals shelter in the smaller bays and inlets. Almost all of Misty Fjords is designated wilderness, but a chunk of about 150,000 acres in the middle was left out for the possible future development of the Quartz Hill Molybdenum deposit. US Borax abandoned its mine plans in 1991 when molybdenum prices dropped, and the site was bought out by the Canadian mining company Teck Cominco, which still says that the mine will be developed when molybdenum prices rise. Most visitors to Misty Fjords come on day trips from large cruise ship tours, usually to Rudyerd Bay (the Rudyerd runway, in summer). The rest of the monument is quite isolated. In 2004 I went on a multi-week kayak trip in the Misty Fjords, circumnavigating Revillagigedo Island. More Misty Fjords info from Gorp, and Wilderness.net. Iskut-Unuk River cones - September 2007 This is actually in Canada, but chronologically, it fits here. The Iskut-Unuk River cones are a series of cinder cones along the Iskut River in northwest British Columbia. These volcanoes at the southern part of the Stikine Volcanic Belt are responsible for a number of basaltic lava flows in the region. The small (7000 ha) Lava Forks Provincial Park protects the site of the youngest of these flows and Canada's most lava flow on recent volcanic eruption (early 1900s). Blue River As is common in volcanic areas, the rocks in the Iskut and Baichtal, J. F. Unuk River valleys are rich in minerals, and this area is home to several underground gold mines, including the Eskay Creek Mine - operated by Barrick Gold Though Cominco closed its Snip Mine near Snippaker Creek in 1999, the Friends of the Stikine claim that during its operation the 100,000 pound hovercraft to transport ore and supplies along the lower Iskut and Stikine Rivers significantly damaged wildlife and salmon spawning habitat. Mining exploration is ongoing in the region. Stikine River - September 2007 The Stikine River is best known for the Grand Canyon of the http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/WildCoast/LongTrekPlanAKMap.html Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial Page 2 of 11 The Stikine River is best known for the Grand Canyon of the Stikine: a 60 mi (100 km) long and 1,000-ft (300-m) deep gorge through the mountains run by only a few hardcore paddlers. The currents in this canyon are strong enough to prevent salmon from swimming upstream, limiting salmon runs to the lower third of the river. The majority of the Stikine flows through B.C., but the last 40 miles are in Alaska, in the Stikine-LeConte wilderness. In the mid-70s and early 1980s BC Hydro was planning a major hydroelectric project that would have included two Iskut-Stikine confluence from very large dams in the Grand Canyon of the Stikine, and three Google earth. more on the Iskut (the Stikine's major tributary). Local wilderness.net residents and conservation groups such as the Friends of the Stikine put up strong opposition to this plan, which eventually fell apart due to the prohibitive cost of building it in such a remote area. The Stikine River Provincial Park now protects the Grand Canyon, and the Mt. Edziza and Spatsizi Provincial Parks contain large areas of the watershed at higher elevations. But the lower Stikine River, the Iskut River, and all of the Stikine's other tributary valley bottoms remain vulnerable. Currently, the main potential threat to the Stikine watershed comes from mining, particularly a coal deposit on the Spatsizi River. Tongass National Forest - September and October 2007 At 17 million acres, the Tongass encompasses most of Southesat Alaska, and is our largest national forest. Though its land area is huge, two thirds of the Tongass is not actually forest, but snow, ice, rock, and non-forest vegetation. And only 4% of the Tongass is the low-elevation old growth most important for wildlife and most productive for timber. Over half of this has already been logged. The most controversial timber sales in the Tongass are in the roadless areas. In September 2006, a landmark court decision overturned Bush's repeal of the Roadless Rule, reverting to the 2001 roadless area protections established under Clinton. However, the Tongass was exempted from that ruling, and it is unclear what the fate of its vast roadless areas will be. More info on the Tongass and the controversy over its logging from the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and the Alaska Rainforest Campaign Juneau - October 2007 The only state capital that can't be reached by road, Juneau is home to about 31,000 people. Over the years, several propoals have been made to move the capitol closer to the major population center in Anchorage, and the state is also http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Journeys/WildCoast/LongTrekPlanAKMap.html Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial Page 3 of 11 considering a controversial proposal to connect Juneau to the road system via Skagway. Hugging a steep coastline in an area of heavy snowfall, Juneau has the distinction of being one of the largest municipal avalanche hazard areas in the country. Avalanches have hit, damaged or destroyed at least 72 buildings within a 10- mile radius of downtown Juneau in the past century. Check out this map of avalanche paths around downtown Juneau. Juneau is a major destination on the Southeast Alaska cruise ship circuit with approximately 900,000 visitors each summer Depending on the exact location, Juneau gets anywhere from 55 to 90 inches of precipitation per year - still less than half as much as some other parts of Southeast Alaska. Glacier Bay National Park - October 2007 Between the islands of Southeast Alaska and the Gulf of Alaska, Glacier Bay Park consists largely of series of fjords and inlets off of Glacier Bay, with calving glaciers at their heads. Glacier Bay Park is over 5,000 square miles (over 13,000 square km), and joins with the neghboring Wrangell- St. Elias (U.S.), Tatshenshini-Alsek (Canada), and Kluane (Canada) parks to form a UNESCO world heritage site, and the largest international protected area in the world. As well Quentin as spectacular glacial landscapes, this set of preserves provides Goodman important habitat for grizzly bears, Dall sheep, and caribou. Despite being remote and inaccessible by road, this park recieves almost 400,000 visitors a year, primarily on cruise ships. Glacier Bay holds the distinction of the fastest measured glacial retreat in the world. As recently as the late 1700s, the entire bay was iced over. Just over 100 years later in 1916, the ice had retreated over 65 miles up the bay. Alaska is warming faster than the rest of the planet, and glaciers here are continuing to retreat rapidly. Click for animated photos of glacier retreat in Glacier Bay. Lituya Bay - October 2007 Lituya Bay is a T-shaped fjord on the west (and rarely visited) edge of Glacier Bay National park, along the Gulf of Alaska coast. The head of the bay lies along a fault line parallelling the coast, and in 1958 an earthquake on this fault set off a landslide that produced the tallest tsunami ever measured in USGS the world. This wave reached over 1700 feet (500 meters) high, stripping the forests from the hillsides, destroying 3 fishing boats, and killing two people.