Rodman Bay lies on the northern side of Baranof Island. Historically, the forest along the bay and up along Rodman Creek provided important deer wintering habitat and good salmon streams. It was first hand-logged in the early 1900s.  In the 1960s, the slopes around Rodman Bay were heavily clear-cut. Recently, the Sitka Conservation Society Groundtruthing Project found few game trails in the clear-cut areas in contrast to  concentrated deer trails in the remaining big-tree old growth. 

Why does SEACC consider this a place worthy of conservation efforts? Because despite past logging, it remains a potentially productive forest. Restoration projects, such as restoring salmon streams and thinning the second-growth forest that currently chokes out understory plants, could revive Rodman Bay for wildlife. Without restoration, the forest would eventually regain the characteristics of an old growth forest, but it would take several centuries.

In 2004 the Murkowski Administration championed the construction of a nearly 50 mile road from Sitka across Baranof Island to Rodman Bay where a new ferry terminal, and possibly other development could sprawl into the bay.  Building a road through the steep valleys of Northern Baranof Island could increase sediment problems in streams and cause more pressure on wildlife already struggling with heavily impacted forest. In fact, the Sitka Ranger District of the Forest Service is currently working to remove culverts and shut down roads in other places in northern Baranof. The plans for the project slowed when the town of Sitka voiced vigorous opposition to the proposal. 

This year the alternatively named Rodman Bay or Cross-Baranof road came to a halt when the Department of Transportation declared it did not have funding for the road and were not going to continue pursuing it.   

The road is not entirely dead; the same Memorandum of Understanding trying to push through the Tenakee-to-Hoonah Road (see the article “Don Young’s Sneak Attack”) includes the proposed Rodman Bay road.  Lack of funding should keep road plans from moving forward until a more long-lasting conservation strategy can be developed for the area.