Wilderness
SCS was born out of the desire to protect parts of the Tongass forever as designated Wilderness Areas. Since then, we continue to be stewards of our Wilderness and advocate for more Wilderness protection. Our Wilderness crew spends countless hours bushwhacking, paddling, hiking, and climbing to chart on-the-ground conditions. We also seek to connect Sitkans and Tongass residents with their wild places by incorporating volunteers on research trips, educating the public of Wilderness values, and sharing the pristine beauty of Wildernesses locally and nationally. Learn more about Wilderness designation and the history of Wilderness on Wilderness.net.
Community Wilderness Stewardship Project
The CWSP is an effort to get Sitkans out into our Wilderness Areas to help SCS conduct research and monitoring expeditions. Find out how you can help by volunteering on a research expedition or by collecting data on your next hunting, hiking, kayaking, or fishing trip.
Wild Places
Check out the Wild places in the Tongass with SCS’s wilderness crew. Here you can see our interactive map, track the Wilderness Crew in real-time via GPS, see video dispatches from the field, scroll through photos, read our reports.
Advocacy
Wilderness designation has protected some of the most unique and beautiful places in the Tongass, but there are still threats like climate change, mismanagement, and over-use. SCS constantly works to protect our Wilderness areas from threats and actively advocate for more Wilderness designation of important ecosystems.
Climate Change in the Tongass
SCS is keeping a close watch on how climate change affects the Tongass through annual summer field work. This research, which supplements that being done by the Forest Service and other agencies, includes monitoring changes in ice packs, glaciers, and plant and animal population. While we hate to see the Tongass negatively impacted by global warming, having good data on these changes is crucial for climate change advocacy work that could ultimately prevent future harm.
Related Posts:
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Leave No Trace Trainer Course: June 8 and 9
Saturday, June 8th and Sunday June 9th (we will be camping overnight at Starrigavan Campground, Sitka) Description: This course will allow participants to learn, practice, and teach the principles of Leave-No-Trace outdoor ethics and will certify participants as LNT Trainers. The Leave-No-Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is a national organization dedicated to teaching people how [...]
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SCS Summer Boat Tours Start June 1st
The first of six boat tours to take place throughout the summer. Mark your calendars! June 1st, Saturday 10am June 11th, Tuesday 5:30pm June 27th, Thursday 5:30pm July 23rd, Tuesday 5:30pm August 13th, Tuesday 5:30pm August 29th, Thursday 5:30pm Check back soon for more information on tour topics and speakers. See you on the boat! [...]
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Backwoods Lecture: 300 Years of Wilderness
Ever wonder where the idea of wilderness came from? Follow the first explorers of Alaska, like Georg Steller, the German naturalist aboard the S/V Gabriel with Vitus Bering upon the first “discovery” of Alaska’s coast or the Episcopal priest Hudson Struck who made the first ascent of Denali, as they struggle to frame their experiences [...]
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Trappers Needed: ISLES Study
This past week, I checked an usual piece of luggage with me on the plane down to Albuquerque: a box of frozen Marten, Ermine, and River Otter skulls, femurs, and intestinal parasites. I was delivering my parcel to Steve O. MacDonald and Dr. Joe Cook (who literally wrote the book on Alaskan mammals) [...]
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Expedition: Lake Benzeman 2012
Lake Benzeman is located approximately 35 miles SE of Sitka by boat in the South Baranof Wilderness Area. Botanist Jonathan Goff, SCS member Diana Saverin, and volunteer Paul Killian made the trip down late on a Friday afternoon. The following morning they broke down their tents, inflated their packrafts, and set out to paddle to [...]
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Take Action: Tell the Forest Service to follow through
Background: The US Forest Service has adopted the Tongass Transition Framework, a program intended to shift forest management away from the out-dated and ill-fated old growth logging paradigm toward management that support multiple uses of the forest, including recreation, restoration, subsistence, and second-growth management. This is an encouraging recognition of the region’s important natural resources, [...]
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My Alaskan Experience: Nora McGinn
Nora McGinn is a Junior in the Environmental Studies program at Knox College in Illinois.
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Wilderness Volunteer’s Reflection
Ricky Sablan is a law enforcement ranger with the Sitka National Historical Park. He joined the SCS Wilderness crew on a Community Wilderness Stewardship Project expedition to South Baranof Wilderness in the summer of 2012. Be sure to check out his videos from the trip below. Walking onto a boat called “The Gust”, we loaded [...]
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Sitka, AK – Where Theory Meets Practice
In July of 2012, thirteen undergraduate students from Knox College embarked on a 15-day wilderness expedition into the wilds of Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The trip was part of a semester long course entitled “Alaska: Forest, Fisheries, and the Politics of Wilderness”. The course entailed an in-depth study of the history of natural resource [...]
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Saint Lazaria
We sat quietly in the colony struggling not to make noise for fear of scaring the birds. It was about ten o’clock at night and the sun was still setting. To the west the sun sank over the horizon and the last few flickers of light colored the approaching clouds. To our east [...]
