juneau

The Forest Service fondly remembers the contributions of  Dr. Walter A. Soboleff, a centenarian deeply revered and Tlingit elder, who died last month at the age of 102.

Located in Alaska, the Tlingit are a Native society that developed a complex hunter-gatherer culture in the temperate rainforest of the Alexander Archipelago in the Southeastern part of the state. The people in this society were the original caretakers of natural resources where the current-day Tongass National Forest exists.

The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center located on the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska is a site to see for many tourists.  This recently renovated Center is a popular cruise ship destination giving a boost to the local economy. Tourism spending in the Juneau, Alaska area is expected to reach $160 million this summer season.

It started as a three-quarter ton chunk of ice taken out of Mendenhall Lake on the Tongass National Forest in Juneau, Alaska.