The Nature of Southeast Alaska

Everything you ever wanted to know about the flora and fauna of Southeast Alaska is contained in the third edition of this lively field guide to the natural world, from bears to banana slugs, mountains to murrelets. Highlighting the most fascinating and unusual aspects of Southeast Alaska natural history, the book is also a guide to the most frequently seen plants and animals.
The overriding and underlying theme of Southeast Alaska is water, and inescapable moisture is the unifying feature of nearly all its habitats. From whales’ permanent immersion to banana slugs’ damp haunts, all our plants and animals contend with water. Only when droughts shrivel the rest of North America do Southeast residents count their soggy blessings. Amount and distribution of water is the logical way to differentiate Southeast’s many natural habitats. These range from ocean, lakes, ponds, and rivers, to frequently submerged salt marshes and stream flood zones, to perennially saturated bogs and other freshwater wetlands, to the usually drenched rain forest and alpine tundra. After a rare two-week drought, it’s sometimes possible to sit in the forest understory without soaking our pants. Then rain resumes. Some habitats are defined by solidified water—glaciers and highcountry snowfields. The term “terrestrial” as applied to certain Southeast Alaskan habitats is somewhat generous; it actually means “occasionally free of water.” The Pacific rain forest—Southeast Alaska is a geographic unit defined by the open Pacific Ocean on the west and the boundary with Canada on the north, east, and south. In some cases the lines on maps are ecologically as well as politically significant. For example, if you climb eastward over the crest of the Coast Range into British Columbia (an expeditionary venture!), you enter more than just a different nation. Precipitation declines suddenly in the mountains’ rainshadow. Flora and fauna are dramatically different. You’ve crossed a border in every sense of the word.