Tongass National Forest

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Visitor Services

A Comprehensive Program of Interpretive, Education and Visitor Outreach

The Tongass National Forest has an extensive visitor services program that attracts over one million visitors a year through a unique mix of outreach programs and facilities. On the Tongass this consists of a land-based public contact at several large visitor centers, and a series of smaller public contact stations at each of ten Ranger Districts, and an extensive marine-based program on the State of Alaska Marine Highway, in-port aboard large cruise ships in Ketchikan, and visiting public on smaller cruise lines via a kayak wilderness ranger program in Misty Fiords and Admiralty National Monuments and wilderness areas and Tracy Arm/Ford's Terror Wilderness Area. These contexts provide outstanding opportunities to deliver personal and non-personal interpretation and conservation education about National Forest and public land resources and their management to residents and visitors alike.

Nature-based tourism plays a prominent role in the economies of the towns and villages located within the Tongass National Forest. A comprehensive strategic plan for interpretation and conservation education within the Tongass National Forest was completed in 2004 and is currently being revised. Meeting the needs of a growing and incredibly diverse public translates into maintaining a top quality and professional staff, working with the best science available, providing excellent and nationally recognized standards and guidelines for the production of interpretive and educational media, and establishing and maintaining partnerships with local and regional entities to support a growing visitor service program.

Some examples of visitor services contexts include:

Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center

Juneau's star attraction and one of the most visited sites in the state, the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center (MGVC), is located about 14 miles from downtown. The surrounding landscape offers a textbook lesson on glacial dynamics and the process of plant succession that occurs in the wake of a retreating glacier. The Recreation Area associated with the glacier has numerous trails, day use and campgrounds that provide access to the local natural and cultural features of the area.

The MGVC was opened in 1962 as the first visitor center in the Forest Service. Designed to handle 25,000 visitors per year, by the mid-1990s the center was overwhelmed as annual visitation exceeded 250,000. The Forest Service completed a major renovation of the center in 1999. The MGVC initiated a fee demonstration program in June 1999, consisting of a year-round $3.00 user fee to enter the visitor center. In 2000 the fee demo program was changed from year-round to seasonal, because the cost of fee collection exceeded the fee revenue in the winter. Recreation fee collection in 2007 for the Visitor Center was $780,000 and permit fees for bus companies transporting visitors to the site were $230,000. An Alaska Geographic interpretive sales area grossed an estimated $648,000 in 2007. Annual operations and maintenance costs were about $909,728 in 2007. Over 445,586 people visited the center from October 1, 2006 to September 30, 2007.

Southeast Alaska Discovery Center

The Southeast Alaska Discovery Center is located one block from the downtown waterfront of the gateway city of Ketchikan. Completed in 1995, the center is the fourth of the Alaska Public Lands Information Centers mandated in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The others are located in Anchorage and Fairbanks and are managed by the National Park Service; and in Tok, managed by the Alaska Division of Community and Business Development. Each of the public lands centers helps link visitors with information on Alaska's vast tracts of federal and state lands.

The Center consists of a central lobby with carved totem poles, an extensive information desk and trip planning area where visitors may view maps, books and videos from across the state of Alaska. A two hundred seat theatre featuring audio visual presentations and interpretive programs, and extensive permanent exhibits featuring the cultural, natural, and resource based foci of southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest and public restrooms.

An Alaska Geographic interpretive bookstore is accessible to street access or through a ramped access within the Center. In 2007 the Alaska Geographic sales area grossed over $161, 053. A learning center classroom and/or meeting room, more restrooms, a small kitchen, stock and publications storage is also present at the Center.

The Discovery Center charges a $5.00 per person user fee from May to October to view the exhibits and theater based presentations. Visitation in 2007 totaled approximately 136,990 entering the building, using the restrooms or visiting the bookstore of which 36,900 paid fees to go through exhibits or watch a theatre program. Annual fee collection in 2007 totaled $184,950. Annual operations and maintenance costs have been estimated to be $406,742 for 2008.

Marine-based Interpretive and Conservation Education Programs

Alaska's Inside Passage is among the most visited attractions in the state, and is home to unique shipboard interpretive programs known as the Tongass Marine Highway Program. This very successful partnership between the state ferry system and the Forest Service is over 35 years old. Uniformed Forest Service staff travel the waterways, conducting talks, introducing communities, presenting films and videos, and staffing an information desk. This is a cooperative program with the State of Alaska, which contributes transportation, lodging and meals. Three mainline ferries are staffed, and they include trips north from Bellingham, WA and Prince Rupert, BC to Juneau through Ketchikan; trips from Juneau to Skagway through Haines; and trips to Sitka, Wrangell and Petersburg from Juneau and return. Forest Service visitor contacts in 2007 totaled 157,083. Annual operation costs were $160,000.

The Southeast Alaska Discovery Center staff present on-board in port interpretive programs and answer questions on board Princess Cruise line ships while they are docked in Ketchikan. A Collection Agreement between the Forest Service and Princess Cruise lines cover the operating cost of the program at $21,754.65. In 2008 this program accounted for over 130 ship visits on 10 ships, for a total of over 5,000 visitor contacts.

In Misty Fiords National Monument east of Behm Canal and Ketchikan and Tracy Arm Fords Terror Wilderness Area east of Stephens Passage and Admiralty National Monument, kayaking wilderness rangers from the Ketchikan Misty Fiords Ranger District and Admiralty National Monument board small cruise vessels while they travel in the open waters of the Inside Passage. These wilderness rangers present programs on the natural and cultural history of the area, wilderness history, management and values about the surrounding landscapes visible from the vessel or from smaller 10-person inflatable boats that can approach the land-water boundaries more effectively.

Caves, Wildlife Observation Sites and other Opportunities

Tourists in Alaska seek a wide variety of experiences, and the Tongass National Forest is working to enhance those experiences related to unique Forest resources and Alaskan opportunities. Forest Service interpreters lead guided tours of El Capitan Cave on northern Prince of Wales Island during summer months. Exploring karsts landscapes is also possible by self-guided trails and interpreted features on northern Prince of Wales Island accessible by roads.

Nature-based tourism figures prominently into this mix, and the Tongass has over 23 officially designated Nature watch viewing sties that have been inventoried and enhanced across the forest, including five bear viewing areas which allow opportunities to see black and brown bears from observatories, boardwalks or blinds. Three sites, Pack Creek, Anan Creek and Fish Creek at Hyder require fees or permits. Margaret Creek requires guided access; Steep Creek is located within the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area.

The Tongass National Forest offers a variety of seasonal summer experiences in campground settings, along trails and viewing sites and platforms, through small visitor centers and exhibits, and special events. In the late spring the Hummingbird Festival in Ketchikan celebrates international migratory birds like the rufous hummingbird returning to coastal southeast Alaska. In September the community of Petersburg hold a Rainforest Festival celebrating all aspects of the temperate rainforest. Annual outreaches to school and through web sites like the Tongass National Forest, and the public lands educational activities for school-aged youth and educators alike at www.Hands on the Land.org and numerous distance learning adventures that include electronic field trips extend the opportunities to learn about the temperate rainforest of the Tongass to those audiences outside southeastern Alaska.

Looking To The Future

Key Messages

These four messages were outlined in the Tongass Interpretation and Conservation Education Strategy, 2004:

1. The Tongass National Forest is a dynamic ecosystem, shaped by nature, woven by culture.
2. People can discover a unique combination of resources in the Tongass National Forest.
3. Alaska's costal lands and waterways have met peoples' social, physical, and spiritual needs for thousands of years. The Tongass National Forest will continue to nurture the region's natural and cultural diversity for future generations.
4. We, and our partners, care for your Tongass National Forest using the best information to sustain the use and protection of resources for today and tomorrow.

National Emphasis Areas: Youth, Water and Climate Change

Youth programming and reaching undeserved audiences has been a goal of the visitor services program on the Tongass. The Forest was the first Region 10 recipient of More Kids in the Woods grant monies in 2007 and has consistently built partnerships to reach undeserved groups in the more than 30 towns and communities in southeast Alaska.

Focusing on water as a resource and healthy watersheds was addressed through a Linking Girls to the Land grant 2007-2008 for the Tongass Alaska Girl Scouts (TAGS) that sought to link over 200 girls in 8 communities through video teleconferencing systems in Forest Service offices. Hydrologists, wetlands specialists, and fisheries biologist worked alongside interpreters and educators doing outreach and activities with residents on healthy watershed education and management.

The Forest Sciences Laboratory in Juneau has created an Institute that is examining the implications for climate change at community and forest levels. Interpreters and conservation educators on the Forest have received a resource bundle of relevant and updated scientific information about conditions and ongoing studies in southeast Alaska. Opportunities to share information with the pubic are being enhanced through involvement of local scientists in annual interpretive trainings.

Please Contact

Faith L. Duncan, Interpretive and Conservation Education Program Manager, Tongass National Forest

907-228-6278 tel

907-228-6292 fax

fduncan@fs.fed.us email

USDA Forest Service - Tongass National Forest Accessibility Statement
Last Modified: September 18, 2008