In 1994, when government protections for the spotted owl threatened his family’s timber business in Washington state, Kirk Dahlstrom made a bold move. He bought a bankrupt sawmill in Alaska, moved his wife and children to Prince of Wales Island, and launched Viking Lumber. His daughter, Sarah, recalls the blood, sweat, and tears of growing up in a timber family—her father took countless midnight calls and risked everything they owned on each timber sale, while her mother adapted to island life by fishing from her skiff and feeding the company’s hard-working crews homemade meals for lunch and dinner, every day. The family’s shared dedication transformed a bankrupt sawmill into a success and drastically raised the standard of living for their four dozen employees.
Seventy miles away in Ketchikan, Eric Nichols built his own timber legacy. Starting as a teenager on a plywood mill’s green chain, he worked his way through forestry school and spent the next 50 years building Alcan Timber into the region’s largest timber operations.
Together, Viking and Alcan provide more than 80 good-paying jobs, distributing long-life wood products that end up in everything from neighborhood fences to Steinway pianos.
The demand for their work is clear: Alaska’s timber, known for its superior strength and appearance, commands premium prices in today’s high-value lumber market. Nevertheless, these lifelong stewards of Alaska’s forests—and the communities they support—are teetering on the brink of survival. What was once a 4,000-job industry has shrunk to fewer than 300 people today.
Their very existence depends on reliable access to timber from the Tongass National Forest, leaving them at the mercy of the federal government, which controls 94% of Alaska’s land. That control is being weaponized against them as federal officials illegally choke off timber access.
The timber industry has long created the kind of jobs that build strong communities—paying well above the average private sector wage and providing year-round, family-sustaining work. And each direct timber job creates indirect jobs in the community including doctors, retailers, and teachers. As timber jobs disappear, so does one of southeast Alaska’s most critical economic drivers.
The U.S. Forest Service (a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture) manages the Tongass under rules set by Congress in the 1990 Tongass Timber Reform Act (TTRA), which requires maintaining a reliable timber supply that meets market demand while protecting wildlife habitats.
In 2013, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack proposed shifting from old-growth to younger trees. This became official policy in 2016 through a Management Plan that promised a ten-year grace period for operators to harvest both old and young trees, then gradually reduce old-growth harvesting as younger trees matured.
But the Forest Service never followed through. Since 2016, it has not sold old-growth timber as promised in the Management Plan and hasn’t even sold as much younger timber as it promised—let alone enough to make up for the old growth it was supposed to sell.
When Vilsack returned as Agriculture Secretary in 2021, he announced the “Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy,” altogether ending systematic old-growth timber sales. This abrupt change—made from his desk 2,700 miles away in Washington, DC—has devastated operators who had invested heavily in the promised transition.
The Forest Service’s broken promise isn’t just disastrous for local operators. It’s also illegal, violating federal law three times over. The agency ignored the TTRA’s requirements, failed to follow through its own 2016 Management Plan, and used informal guidance rather than required rulemaking procedures to make sweeping changes.
The Constitution prevents administrative agencies from ruling by fiat. If unelected officials can unilaterally override the law and destroy an entire industry in Alaska, no business or worker anywhere in the country is safe from executive overreach.
That’s why Kirk, Eric, and the Alaska Forest Association are fighting back. Represented free of charge by Pacific Legal Foundation, they’re challenging the Forest Service’s blatant attempt to circumvent Congress and ensure all citizens have access to natural resources as prescribed in federal law.
What’s At Stake?
- The productive use of natural resources makes the lives of every American better. Timber harvested in Alaska is used to make everything from neighborhood fences to Steinway pianos. Government shouldn’t stand in the way.
- The U.S. Forest and Wildlife Service cannot ignore Congress’ clear instructions by pursuing an environmental agenda Congress never authorized.
