Sitka, Alaska

Sitka is the fifth largest city in Alaska, though that isn't saying much, we boast a population of 8,500. Sitka is the only large "city" on the outer coast of Southeast Alaska and sits nestled between steep forested mountains and the coastline of Sitka Sound. Besides tiny Port Alexander, Baranof Warm Springs, and hatcheries, Sitka is the only human dwelling on the roughly 300 square mile Baranof Island.

We have 14 miles of road, and are not connected by road to any other location, a fact that contributes significantly to the character of the community and which draws a certain type of resident. There are probably more boats of various types than residents, and Sitka has several miles of harbor. Our community lifestyle is centered around the ocean and the bounty it provides commercial, sport, and subsistence fisheries. Fishing is second only to visitation/tourism as the leading economic engine for both Sitka and the region of Southeast Alaska.

For four decades, Sitka was the site of the Japanese-owned Alaska Pulp Corporation pulp mill, one of two large pulp mills that were fed old-growth timber from the Tongass. Because of changing global economics and demand for pulp, both mills closed in the 1990s. Since then, Sitka's economy has flourished and diversified and has become a model for a community striving to live in a sustainable relationship with its surrounding natural environment. 

 

The Tongass: Alaska's Rainforest

The temperate rainforest is the rarest ecosystem or biome in the world, and was originally found only along North America's northwest coast, the southern coast of Chile, in Tasmania, along the west coast of Scotland/Norway, and to lesser extent, along Japan's Hokkaido Island. Today almost all of this magnificent forest ecosystem is gone. The most intact belt of temperate rainforest runs along the coast of British Colombia to Alaska's Glacier Bay region, though sprinklings remain in California, Washington, Oregon, and in Prince William Sound.

Commerical clearcut logging of this rainforest has left a mere 5% of it remaining in the Lower 48 states, though in Southeast Alaska, most of us can walk out our backdoors into the original old-growth rainforest as it has stood for millennia. One of the primary reasons Sitka Conservation Society exists is to protect for future generations, and for current non-destructive uses, the last temperate rainforest stands in Southeast Alaska. To learn more about the coastal temperate rainforest of Alaska, please view the links on the right. To learn about how you can help save this precious forest, please read the Forest/Timber page of this website, or contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The future of your public forests is up to you....