Kosciusko

Kosciusko covers 64,134 acres on Kosciusko Island and surrounding islets in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska — North Island and Scott Island among them — within the Thorne Bay Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest. The terrain is varied, rising from saltwater shorelines along Davidson Inlet to interior summits at Mount Francis, Tokeen Peak, Pyramid Peak, and Holbrook Mountain, with the distinctive twin summits of The Nipples to the north and Ruins Point projecting into the channel. The Shipley Bay watershed gathers rain and snowmelt and delivers it to the sea through Trout Creek, Tokhini Creek, Sutter Creek, and Shakan Creek. Shipley Lake and El Capitan Lake hold standing water on the interior, while Dry Pass and Van Sant Cove connect Shipley Bay to the open water of Davidson Inlet.

The dominant lowland canopy is a maritime conifer forest of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), western redcedar (Thuja plicata), and Alaska yellow cedar (Callitropsis nootkatensis). Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) stands on the wettest, most peat-bound terraces; mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) takes over the higher slopes of Mount Francis and Pyramid Peak. The understory carries devil's club (Oplopanax horridus), salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), red huckleberry (Vaccinium parvifolium), and red alder (Alnus rubra) along stream margins. Lettuce lichen (Lobaria oregana) drapes from the limbs of older spruce — a nitrogen-fixing canopy lichen characteristic of unfragmented Tongass old growth. Forest-floor plants include twinflower (Linnaea borealis), fairy slipper (Calypso bulbosa), single-flowered clintonia (Clintonia uniflora), and the white bog orchid (Platanthera dilatata), an IUCN-vulnerable species, in saturated openings.

The forest supports a vertically distributed wildlife community. Pink and coho salmon ascend the named creeks into the interior, drawing American black bear (Ursus americanus) into streamside gravels and bald eagle and great blue heron (Ardea herodias) to creek mouths. The gray wolf (Canis lupus) on Kosciusko Island is the Alexander Archipelago wolf, ranging the unfragmented forest in pursuit of mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) — known here as Sitka black-tailed deer. American marten (Martes americana) hunt small mammals through the closed canopy. In the marine waters around the island, the IUCN endangered sea otter (Enhydra lutris) feeds in the kelp beds and Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), IUCN vulnerable, haul out on offshore rocks. The IUCN critically endangered sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) occupies the subtidal rocky bottom. Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus) and Townsend's warbler (Setophaga townsendi) call from the interior canopy. Portions of this area fall within the potential range of several federally listed species; see the Conservation section for details.

A walk from a creek mouth on Shipley Bay begins at sea level under Sitka spruce and yellow cedar, passes through a salmonberry understory along Trout Creek or Tokhini Creek, and climbs through hemlock benches toward the cleared summits of The Nipples and Mount Francis. Below, the islands of Davidson Inlet pattern the saltwater between forested ridges; above, the mountain hemlock thins toward open rock, and the sound of running water gives way to wind.

Kosciusko lies on Kosciusko Island in the Alexander Archipelago, separated from northern Prince of Wales Island by Shakan Bay and Dry Pass, within the Thorne Bay Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest. The history of this island is the history of the Tlingit peoples who long occupied the surrounding waters, the federal reservation and consolidation that followed at the turn of the twentieth century, and the short-lived industrial extractions of mid-century.

The Tlingit of the Heinÿaa Ḵwáan occupied northwestern Prince of Wales Island and the islands adjacent to it, with Tuxekan serving as the principal winter village north of present-day Klawock [1]. The first settlers in Klawock were Tlingit; they came from the winter village of Tuxekan and used Klawock as a fishing camp in the summer [2]. In 1868 a trading post opened in Klawock [2], and in 1878 the first fish cannery in Alaska opened in Klawock [2], drawing Tlingit families seasonally from Tuxekan and other camps across the Kosciusko-Heceta-Prince of Wales island group. In 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) and the Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) were started in Klawock [2], organizations whose later legal advocacy would secure federal recognition of the Tlingit and Haida people.

Federal designation followed Theodore Roosevelt's two proclamations. On August 20, 1902, Proclamation 491 reserved Chichagof Island and the adjacent islands to the seaward thereof, Kupreanof Island, Kuiu Island, Zarembo Island, and Prince of Wales Island and the adjacent islands to the seaward thereof, in Alaska, as the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve [3]. Kosciusko Island, lying immediately off northern Prince of Wales, was among the adjacent islands included in this reservation. On September 10, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska on the recommendation of forest supervisor W. A. Langille and F. E. Olmsted [4]. On July 1, 1908, the Alexander Archipelago and the Tongass were consolidated into a single national forest, the Tongass, and the lands of Kosciusko Island passed into the Tongass through this consolidation.

Industrial use of the island arrived in pulses. In 1933 the Civilian Conservation Corps began to build campgrounds, roads, and trails in the forests, and to restore Native totem poles of Southeast Alaska [5]. The Shakan molybdenite deposit on Kosciusko Island was investigated by U.S. Geological Survey geologist G. D. Robinson and reported as USGS Open-File Report 44-83 in 1944 [6], reflecting a wartime federal search for strategic metals on the island. In 1942 the Alaska Spruce Log Program was established on the Tongass to provide airplane lumber for military use [5], and in 1951 the first of two 50-year timber contracts began with a pulp mill in Ketchikan [5], opening the northern Prince of Wales island group — including Kosciusko — to large-scale industrial logging through the second half of the twentieth century. The 64,134-acre Kosciusko Inventoried Roadless Area, in the Thorne Bay Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest, is today managed under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

• Cold-Water Stream Integrity: The Shipley Bay watershed delivers cold rain and snowmelt to the sea through Trout Creek, Tokhini Creek, Sutter Creek, and Shakan Creek; Shipley Lake and El Capitan Lake hold standing water on the interior. With forested slopes intact, the system retains the shaded, low-sediment gravel substrate that pink and coho salmon need to spawn, and delivers marine-derived nutrients from returning fish back into the surrounding forest.

• Old-Growth Habitat for the Alexander Archipelago Wolf: The unfragmented maritime conifer forest of Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and western redcedar provides large, contiguous home ranges for the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) and the Sitka black-tailed deer it pursues. American marten (Martes americana) hunt through the same closed canopy, and lettuce lichen (Lobaria oregana) — a nitrogen-fixing canopy lichen of unfragmented Tongass old growth — drapes the limbs above.

• Estuary-to-Marine Connectivity: Continuous forest cover, undisturbed creek mouths, and intact tidal flats around Shipley Bay, Van Sant Cove, and Davidson Inlet maintain the freshwater-marine transition that supports juvenile salmon and the kelp-bed ecosystem of the surrounding saltwater. The IUCN endangered sea otter (Enhydra lutris) feeds in those kelp beds; the critically endangered sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) occupies the subtidal rocky bottom.

Potential Effects of Road Construction

• Sedimentation and stream temperature shifts in salmon-bearing creeks: Cut slopes, ditches, and unstable fill on logging roads in Southeast Alaska deliver chronic fine sediment into receiving streams, smothering the clean gravels that pink and coho salmon require to spawn. Loss of riparian canopy at road crossings raises summer water temperatures, and undersized or perched culverts block adult salmon from upstream reaches; these hydrological and thermal changes can persist for decades after a road is closed.

• Fragmentation and increased access to Alexander Archipelago wolf range: A road through unfragmented maritime conifer forest converts continuous interior canopy into linear edge habitat and creates corridors that increase human access. Increased road access to the Alexander Archipelago wolf has been documented as a primary driver of unsustainable harvest in the broader Prince of Wales Island group; edge effects also dry soils, admit windthrow into stand interiors, and erode the structural complexity that supports marten and lettuce lichen.

• Coastal sedimentation reaching kelp beds and sea otter habitat: Sediment generated by interior road construction and clearcut harvest above tidewater reaches the marine waters of Shipley Bay and Davidson Inlet through cleared creek mouths. Suspended fines reduce light penetration in adjacent kelp beds and bury the rocky subtidal substrate that the IUCN endangered sea otter and the critically endangered sunflower sea star depend on. Marine sediment-driven habitat loss is difficult to reverse on management timescales.

Kosciusko covers 64,134 acres on Kosciusko Island and surrounding islets in the Alexander Archipelago, within the Thorne Bay Ranger District of the Tongass National Forest. Access is by boat or floatplane from Prince of Wales Island communities — Whale Pass, Naukati Bay, Coffman Cove, El Capitan — and from Cape Pole, the small logging community on the island itself. A network of forest roads cuts inland from Cape Pole and from the southern shore: the Shipley Bay 1530000 Road (7.4 miles), Mount Francis 1530100 Road (2.3 miles), Three Knobs 1525200 Road (4.1 miles), Three Kings Spur A 1525225 (0.9 miles), and the Cape Pole 1500000 Road (2.0 miles), all on imported loose material. From the Shipley Bay Road, the Shipley Bay Trail (#54795, 0.6 miles, native material) is the one designated foot trail within the area, descending to the head of Shipley Bay.

Hiking and dispersed backcountry travel The Shipley Bay Trail is short — 0.6 miles — but provides the only maintained foot access into the area. From the trail's end on the bay, dispersed travel along the shoreline, up Trout Creek, or onto the slopes of Mount Francis is by route-finding. The interior forest is thick with devil's club (Oplopanax horridus) and salmonberry; most parties keep to creek-side benches when climbing toward the summits of The Nipples, Mount Francis, Pyramid Peak, or Holbrook Mountain.

Saltwater and stream fishing The Shipley Bay headwaters and the named creeks draining into the bay — Trout Creek, Tokhini Creek, Sutter Creek, and Shakan Creek — carry runs of pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch). Anglers also work the marine waters of Davidson Inlet, Shipley Bay, and Van Sant Cove for quillback rockfish (Sebastes maliger), black rockfish (Sebastes melanops), and Pacific halibut. Shipley Lake and El Capitan Lake hold inland fishing opportunities. All Alaska state fishing regulations apply, and a current Alaska sport fishing license is required.

Hunting American black bear (Ursus americanus) range the roadless interior. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) — Sitka black-tailed deer — work the riparian forest, salmonberry margins, and second-growth edges. The Alexander Archipelago wolf (a regional form of gray wolf) is present at low density, and subsistence and recreational wolf hunting on Kosciusko and adjacent islands is tightly regulated due to historical population concerns driven in part by road access elsewhere in the Prince of Wales group. Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulations and game management unit boundaries govern season dates, bag limits, and licensing.

Sea kayaking and small-boat paddling Davidson Inlet, Shipley Bay, and the channels around North Island, Scott Island, and Kosciusko itself provide sheltered paddling, with the open water of El Capitan Passage requiring more attention to wind and weather. Sea kayakers move along forested shorelines under Sitka spruce and yellow cedar, land at creek mouths, and continue inland on foot. Dry Pass connects Shipley Bay into the larger channel system.

Wildlife and bird observation Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) feed in the kelp beds off the island's coast; Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) haul out on offshore rocks; harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) frequent the bays. Bald eagle, great blue heron (Ardea herodias), and belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) work the creek mouths; Pacific wren (Troglodytes pacificus), Townsend's warbler (Setophaga townsendi), and varied thrush call from the interior canopy. Harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) winter in the kelp beds, and rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) move across the wet forest floor in spring. Fairy slipper (Calypso bulbosa) and slender bog orchid (Platanthera stricta) flower under the cedars in the same season.

The recreation here depends directly on the area's roadless condition. Beyond the existing boundary roads at Cape Pole and Shipley Bay, the interior of Kosciusko has no road network; that absence is what preserves the spawning gravels of Trout Creek and Tokhini Creek, the wolf and marten range of the closed-canopy forest, and the kelp beds where sea otter feed. Each activity above — hiking, fishing, hunting, paddling, wildlife observation — would be measurably reduced by the sedimentation, fragmentation, and increased access pressure that further road construction would introduce.