By Katie Bilodeau
In January, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) approved a policy change for the Tongass National Forest that will disproportionately impact Wilderness. Designated Wilderness makes up about one-third of the 17 million-acre Tongass, which spans the coastal panhandle of Alaska. The Tongass is home to the world’s largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest and has complete wildlife communities from all five species of Pacific salmon up to the apex predators: brown bears, Alexander Archipelago wolves, and bald eagles.
The agency requested public comments on a proposed policy change for special-use permits that are issued for privately owned cabins on national forests in Alaska in spring of 2024. Wilderness Watch and about 5,000 of our members and supporters commented, and the agency approved their policy change in January 2025.
Individual, private cabins are sprinkled across the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. Before Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980—designating Wilderness and reserving public land and land for Alaska Native Corporations (i.e. Tribes)—individuals built cabins on public land. Some did so with a permit from the USFS (which we call “authorized” cabins for the purpose of this article). Some individuals built their cabins without permission (which are “trespass” cabins for the purpose of this article). The proposed policy change involved the authorized cabins.
Commenting on the policy change that the USFS pitched was difficult, as the agency did not describe the precise consequences of changing nebulous permit codes to other permit codes. The agency vaguely stated:
The Forest Service previously placed some limits on the number of times a permit for certain ANILCA cabins could be reissued or who could be listed on a special use permit. Many cabin owners and their families have long sought a change in the way the Forest Service manages special use permits for their cabins.
Without more information, the USFS proposed policy change—apparently based on the wishes of the cabin owners—made no sense with the minimal details provided to the public. The agency didn’t fully explain what the current restrictions were or why they had been there. The agency also never mentioned Wilderness when soliciting comments—it failed to mention how many cabins were in Wilderness, whether the current policy for authorized cabins was different for cabins in Wilderness, or how the proposed policy might impact Wilderness.
After the comment period closed, Wilderness Watch met with the regional forester and other USFS employees working on the proposed policy. We wanted clarification on what it would actually change, but we walked away from that meeting with more questions than answers. So, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, asking for the original and current permits for each of the cabins on the Tongass National Forest. We asked about the Tongass, and not the Chugach, because the Chugach has no designated Wilderness. A pattern clearly emerged from the FOIA response.
The FOIA response clarified that of the 60 private cabins spread across the Tongass National Forest, over half of those are in Wilderness. The language in the permits immediately suggested that the proposal reverses a 40-year policy specifically intended to phase out authorized private cabins in Wilderness. This policy originates out of ANILCA.
When Congress passed ANILCA in 1980, the statute recognized the authorized and trespass cabins, and treated them differently. For the trespass cabins—the ones built without USFS authorization—the owners could apply for and receive a retroactive permit, but the statute limited this permit to the life of the claimant that could be transferred only once to that claimant’s immediate family. These trespass cabins—whether in Wilderness or not—all end after the claimant’s immediate family cease to own and use the cabin.
Congress provided separate direction for authorized cabins. ANILCA states that, “subject to the provisions” of the original permit, ANILCA would not preclude “transferring such a lease or permit to another person at the election or death of the original permittee.” But, some of the original permits were based on provisions that have become obsolete in the decades since ANILCA. For example, on Admiralty Island, the USFS issued at least seven original permits in the mid-1960s through the early 1970s for hunting or trapping cabins “on the premise that it is needed to facilitate harvest of wildlife overpopulations in the vicinity” and specified that permit renewal would be “contingent upon the Forest Supervisor’s determination that there is a continuing need for control of wildlife populations….” Six of these authorized cabins are now in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on Admiralty Island, and the new policy allows them to remain, even if the wildlife-management paradigm upon which the permit was based has been replaced with better science.
ANILCA also permitted the agencies to end permitting for authorized cabins that were a “direct threat or a significant impairment to the purposes for which a conservation system unit was established.”
Part of the proposed policy would be to allow the authorized cabin owners to request the agency treat their cabin as a trespass cabin and apply the ANILCA section that governs trespass cabins. In Wilderness Watch’s meeting with the Forest Service, agency employees could not satisfactorily answer why the agency had proposed to arbitrarily redefine authorized cabins as trespass cabins. The statute had created these categories based on whether the cabin had been built with permission from the USFS or not; these are factually clear categories. Reviewing the language in the special-use permits, however, answered some of our questions.
The most recent special-use permits for authorized cabins in Wilderness all have a provision that is absent from the permits for their non-Wilderness counterparts. This Wilderness-related provision explicitly prohibits reissuing special-use permits to subsequent cabin owners: “A new authorization shall not be issued to any subsequent person, heir, living trust, corporation, or any person holding an interest in the improvements.” In contrast, the authorized cabins outside of Wilderness have no such restriction, so the agency may issue new permits when a new owner inherits or purchases the cabin. Based on the records we received, the USFS started adding this termination provision to authorized cabins around 1984. So, for 40 years the previous policy had been planning a phase-out of cabins in Wilderness by incorporating termination language into the special-use permits, and the cabin owners agreed to these terms.
Retired USFS employees who worked on Wilderness and special-use permits on the Tongass confirmed to Wilderness Watch what the FOIA response had suggested. After the passage of ANILCA, the USFS decided it would administer authorized cabins in Wilderness differently. These former employees noted there was a one-time family transfer allowed, where many permits could be put in the name of a younger family member. As stated above, Congress allowed agencies to end permits for authorized cabins where they were a “direct threat or a significant impairment to the purposes for which a conservation system unit was established.” ANILCA defined “conservation system unit” to include Wilderness. Based on ANILCA and the agency’s long-standing policy, the USFS had correctly recognized private cabins in Wilderness to impair the purpose of Wilderness, and had been intentionally phasing out these cabins, until this year.
The FOIA response also suggested the possible motivation for a policy change 40 years later. Many of the current cabin owners are the last generation of permit holders for authorized cabins in Wilderness—the one-time family transfer has already been used. Under their current permits, these transferees have agreed that their permit ends when they die or no longer own the cabin. They have agreed the permit will not be reissued—not to an estate, an heir, or a purchaser—and they have agreed that they, their estate, or a new owner must bear the cost associated with removing the structure. These permits are starting to end now, whether it is because the permit holders are passing or because they no longer wish to use the cabin or deal with the liabilities and fees associated with owning it.
Under the previous policy, all of the authorized cabin owners in Wilderness are the last who can hold a permit for their cabin. Passing on the cabin means the new owner would bear the costs of removing the structure. Incredibly, the new policy allows authorized cabin owners to request that the agency treat their cabin as if it were a trespass cabin. While it is legally dubious to ask the USFS to reclassify a cabin under a statutory category to which that cabin factually cannot belong, the end result is that the agency could apply the ANILCA section that allows a one-time transfer to family under that new trespass category. Cabin owners would have a new opportunity to transfer their cabin that they did not have under the old policy.
These wilderness cabins becoming permanent structures in Wilderness will be fully realized one generation into this new policy. Authorized cabin owners may now ask the USFS to consider their cabin as a trespass cabin so they can benefit from a statutorily guaranteed transfer not allowed under the previous policy. The USFS will generate new permit language for the new cabin category. Once the new sunset date finally arrives, however, future cabin owners simply need to point out that their cabins had been mischaracterized—after all, these cabins had a lawful special-use permits in 1980; factually they cannot be trespass cabins. The USFS will reshuffle the cabin back to the proper statutory cabin and generate another new permit, which will have no permit language that prohibits future transfers because in one generation from now, the agency will have long forgotten its 1984-2024 practice phasing out cabins in Wilderness.
The simple hypothetical scenario above is not unrealistic given what we know about human nature. The result is structures—privately owned cabins—will become permanent in Wilderness on the Tongass National Forest. Current permit holders with cabins in Wilderness will have evaded their agreements, where they accepted the terms that they are the last permit holder, a the beneficiary of the one-time family transfer after which the cabin must be dismantled.
Besides the clear potential for negative wilderness impacts, we want to recognize there have been cabin owners—heirs or executors of estates—who have abided by this 40-year-old policy and the terms of their permit, and have removed authorized cabins in Wilderness. Furthermore, there have been USFS employees who have enforced these permit restrictions in Wilderness over the past 40 years. This change in policy not only degrades Wilderness, but it is a thumb in the eye of people who respectfully have followed the rules.
On March 21, 2025, eight former USFS employees–who spent their time managing Wilderness, special-use permits, and recreation in Alaska–sent a letter to then Regional Forester Chad Van Ormer expressing their objection to the new policy. These former agency employees have shared this letter with Wilderness Watch, and have given us permission to share it with you, clarifying that the letter represents the signatories’ personal opinions and are not related to any current work or employment.
Wilderness Watch still had enough unanswered questions to warrant submitting a second Freedom of Information Act request, which we are reviewing now. We have asked for a cabin-tracking report we understand the USFS created, information on decommissioned cabins, and policy records on Tongass cabins from the last two decades to determine what next steps might be available.
Although the details are different, the policy the USFS adopted in January 2025 is not a new story. This is a story of private individuals who accepted a limited privilege in Wilderness, acknowledging it would end when certain conditions occur. Now that the end is in sight, some of these individuals apparently want to enlarge that privilege, as reflected in the agency’s admission prefacing its proposed policy that “Many cabin owners and their families have long sought a change in the way the Forest Service manages special use permits for their cabins.” The USFS has appeared to have opted for changing the rules instead of sticking to their 40-year permit policy restricting permit reissuances, even to the detriment of Wilderness. This move has relieved them from having enforcing a pro-Wilderness policy that probably won’t be popular with some cabin owners. With this new policy, cabins in Wilderness can stay, maybe permanently, and this generation of agency employees just punted their difficult obligation onto their successors.
Top Photo: Misty Fjords Wilderness by Valeria Cancino/USFS
Katie Bilodeau is Wilderness Watch’s legislative director/policy analyst.
In 1964, the USFS permitted a 12×19 foot hunting and trapping cabin in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness in Alaska, issuing the permit “on the premise that it is needed to facilitate harvest of wildlife populations in the vicinity.” That first permit mandated that permit renewals would be contingent on the “continuing need for control of wildlife populations.” That permit language is absent from the current permit.
Photo on the right above:
When the USFS inspected this cabin in the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness in Alaska in 2015, the agency noted signs of non-use, such as boarded up windows and doors. Like the other wilderness cabins, the one-time family transfer has already occurred, and this was the last permit holder under the policy the USFS terminated in January 2025.
Both cabins pictured above are in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness, AK.
273 Comments
Please phase out all wilderness cabins. thank you!
Get cabin out of the Wilderness.
The precise consequences of changing nebulous permit codes to other permit codes for authorized cabins should be adequately described so they can be properly enforced. All unauthorized cabins should be removed at the owner’s expense.
Please do not reverse the phase out of cabins in the wilderness! The wilderness needs to remain wild!
Keep wilderness WILD in Alaska and EVERYwhere.
No cabins allowed in the Arctic. Wilderness is needed for the wildlife. Leave the Tongass alone.
Wilderness is for everyone, not just a few wealthy cabin owners.
Wilderness does not include private cabins
We do not need to assist the destruction of the wilderness any further by allowing the occupation of the exhisting cabins or any more to be built.
The Wilderness should be wild! No cabins should be permitted.
stop private cabins on public lands.
what’s on public land can not be private, thus
that cabin is mine too!!!
hum a chorus of This Land is your land, this land is my land!!!
Remove all private constructions now
Charge such removals to those who built with NO
legal permission to do so.
NOW
& retroactively
Wilderness does not ever include cabins! They have to go.
I support removing the existing cabins when the permits expire. Federal land should not have private housing!
Please leave the wilderness as a wilderness — without intrusion of ANYTHING — we so badly need to protect the wildness that is left, not exploit it int any way.
Please return to the previous policy. Houses should not be allowed on public lands and particularly not in wilderness areas. The houses currently in wilderness areas should not be re-permitted. They need to be removed once the current permit ends. No houses should be allowed on public land.
Please remove existing cabins and don’t allow further development in the Tongass. No need for people to permanently reside there. So much wilderness has already been destroyed through human occupation. Thank you!
No more new cabins in the Tongass National Forest. Public land must remain natural.
Too many humans, not enough wilderness.
No to this change of the rules, which would result in negative impacts on Wilderness. These private cabin owners knew the rules and the expiration date.
I am writing to you out of concern for the vastly negative impact that the approved policy change for the Tongass National Forest will disproportionately have on the wilderness and the wildlife that calls the area home.
This change in policy not only degrades the wilderness, but it is shows a larger disregard to the people who respectfully have followed the rules.
Please consider reversing or amending this awful policy.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
– Evelyn Och, MS
Please remove these cabins. They do not belong in our wilderness.
Private cabins should not be on public land, please remove
It’s time to remove the private cabins from public land.
Please do not allow cabins in the wilderness. Humans often leave a very poor ecological imprint. Also there is the potential for more interaction between the animals and humans that can result in humans being maimed or killed. Unfortunately, then the animal will pay the price with there life when they were doing what nature intended.
The Tongass is home to the world’s largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest and has complete wildlife communities from all five species of Pacific salmon up to the apex predators: brown bears, Alexander Archipelago wolves, and bald eagles. Let’s increase its protection by ELIMINATING privately owned cabins on national forests!!!
Leave nature in a natural state. Once it’s gone it’s gone forever.
Please keep the wilderness wild without human buildings
Leave the arctic alone. Leave arctic wildlife alone, animals cant exist anywhere else. Humans disturb their habitat. Phase out cabins. NO cabins, NO humans.
Protect the arctic and wildlife. They cant live anywhere else. Phase out cabins completely. NO cabins, NO humans.
Do not approve the policy change allowing private cabins in Wilderness. Follow the 1980 ANILCA rules. The recognized owners agreed to the terms and have used the condition to pass the property down to the next generation. NOW THEY WANT TO CHANGE THE RULES? NO WAY. They agreed upon rules were very generous. Many other national parks and properties only gave a lifetime lease, not the abillity to pass down one more generation. They got a sweetheart deal back in 1980.
It is also way past time to get rid of the unauthorized cabins. The owners’ buildings were constructed illegally and they are breaking the law. Wilderness should be free from all human occupancy/ buildings. Only a temporary small tent reached by backpacking into the site should be allowed in designated wilderness areas.
Leave the Arctic alone!!! No cabins at all for anyone.
Please protect our wildnerness.
Pls leave the wilderness wild. Humans are the problem!
Private cabins do not belong on public land and should be removed.
Adhere to the current picture and don’t change the rules
Get rid of the cabins! Wilderness is supposed to be wilderness, not a housing subdivision! Must we destroy all our wild places and the ecosystems they support?
Please, let’s save our wilderness. Once it’s gone,its gone.
Cabins in the Wilderness Study Areas and Wilderness Areas of Alaska (and elsewhere for that matter) are antithetical to the wilderness values of these lands. Such cabins should be removed forthwith. These unsightly, intrusive structures spoil the wilderness values of these lands.
ALASKA MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS !!! IT IS OUR LAST WILD REFUGE !!!!
I am strongly opposed to this change in use permits for Wilderness cabins. All permit holders should be required to adhere to the original terms.
Please do not allow temporary cabins to become permanent cabins as the newly proposed rule language would allow.
This change in rules betrays the point of designating “Wilderness”. PPl have known for years that there is a limit on using this land and that it does not belong to them. There is no reason to change to appease special interests! Having to go out and at least do basic inspections is of the utmost importance and also doing something about violations, gees! Sincerely
The USFS has appeared to have opted for changing the rules instead of sticking to their 40-year permit policy restricting permit reissuances, even to the detriment of Wilderness. This move has relieved them from having enforcing a pro-Wilderness policy that probably won’t be popular with some cabin owners. With this new policy, cabins in Wilderness can stay, maybe permanently, and this generation of agency employees just punted their difficult obligation onto their successors.
No to cabins in the Tongass, private or otherwise. The policy to allow special use cabins, even those built illegally (trespass), should be undone. No such cabins should be allowed to exist. The forest should remain wild.
Tongass is home to the world’s largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest and has complete wildlife communities from all five species of Pacific salmon up to the apex predators: brown bears, Alexander Archipelago wolves, and bald eagles.
Please keep the current policy of phasing out private cabins on public lands in Alasaka. Certainly don’t allow building new ones. Let’s keep the earth healthy.
Leave everything the way it was!
Wilderness means wilderness!
Please do not enlarge the privilege now that the cycle is nearing completion
Cabins in the Tongass National Forest will disproportionately impact Wilderness. The Tongass is home to the world’s largest remaining old-growth temperate rainforest and has complete wildlife communities from all five species of Pacific salmon up to the apex predators: brown bears, Alexander Archipelago wolves, and bald eagles. Some individuals built their cabins without permission. Without more information, the USFS proposed policy change—apparently based on the wishes of the cabin owners—made no sense with the minimal details provided to the public.
leave things alone
Please keep Alaska wild and don’t allow fossil fuel development.
I had to buy my property that I built my home on. So there are people all over the place just building on land that is meant for the freedom of our beloved wildlife? Trespassing for sure. As for the other point made, it must be something to help King Trump take over or they would not be doing this. BEWARE of anything the Forest Service does not. It is clearly NOT for the forest…the streams, the animals , the sanity of the entire environment. This game of cut cut cut resources, jobs, is all part of his plan of take over. BEWARE.
You people have been trying to raid the Tongass for various reasons for years and years and years. I’m now 82 and I’ve been watching! The Tongass is a very special area that doesn’t need more human ruining. Where is the “Service” in Forest Service? Can’t you protect anything?
No more cabins in wilderness areas.
I am writing in opposition to the change in policy allowing individuals to maintain cabins in wilderness areas. These cabin owners are private individuals who accepted a limited privilege in Wilderness, acknowledging it would end when certain conditions occur. Now that the end is in sight, some of these individuals apparently want to enlarge that privilege, as reflected in the agency’s admission prefacing its proposed policy that “Many cabin owners and their families have long sought a change in the way the Forest Service manages special use permits for their cabins.” It appears the USFS has opted for changing the rules instead of sticking to their 40-year permit policy restricting permit reissuances, even to the detriment of Wilderness. This move has relieved them from having enforcing a pro-Wilderness policy that probably won’t be popular with some cabin owners. With this new policy, cabins in Wilderness can stay, maybe permanently, and this generation of agency employees just punted their difficult obligation onto their successors.
These structures do not belong in any wilderness area. Please stick to the original agreement.
No cabins marring and destroying pristine wilderness. Human animals have wrought enough destruction.
I OPPOSE ADAMANTLY.
Don’t allow cabins in the wild!
NO cabins!! This area is a national forest and a preserve. NO one should build any sort of structure in this area. The point of a preserve is JUST THAT!
Do not allow people to use cabins indefinitely- it hurts the wilderness & the planet – people must not live in these cabins forever – the land belongs to the animals
Wilderness is everything and any policy reversal that disproportionately impacts it does not make sense at this late point in time. In general, we must save what is left and not encroach on systems in balance.
Please adhere to the original leases, these are public lands, no one should be given special treatment – after so many years have passed and they agreed to the original terms. Thank you.