The morning begins with a sense of anticipation \u2013 the calm before 1,200lbs of explosives detonate a stream culvert buried 10ft in Alaska\u2019s Tongass national forest.<\/p>\n
Jamie Daniels, 53, and his crew of Tlingit forestry workers take cover in a glade of alders.<\/p>\n
A few minutes earlier, together with the US Forest Service and a Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC) watershed scientist, they fed high-grade explosives into the galvanized aluminum culvert on a 40ft sled made of spruce trees. The goal now is to vaporize it, along with the rocks on top.<\/p>\n
Crouched 1,000ft away from the blast site, Jack Greenhalgh, the US Forest Service master blaster veteran, shouts: \u201cFire in the hole!\u201d<\/p>\n
He presses a remote detonator. Seconds later, four 50lb bags of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (Anfo) go off.<\/p>\n
A boom echoes across the valley, and the air goes liquid as a shockwave sweeps over the group, causing workers to grip hard hats. Football-sized splinters of granite shoot into the sky. Leaves flutter to the ground. A cloud of acrid smoke blows over.<\/p>\n
\u201cStand by until we clear the area,\u201d Greenhalgh mumbles, climbing out from behind his berm to inspect the damage \u2013 or success, depending on how one looks at it.<\/p>\n
Workers slide a sled built of spruce saplings loaded with explosives into a metal culvert left by loggers in the 1980s and 90s. Photograph: Brendan Jones\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
The area where the group works is called Cube Cove, a 22,000-acre (8,900-hectare) addition to the 1m-acre Kootznoowoo wilderness on Admiralty Island, where the Tlingit people have lived, hunted and fished for at least 10,000 years. The wilderness makes up a chunk of the 17m-acre Tongass \u2013 by far the largest national forest in the United States.<\/p>\n
The Tlingit have long considered Admiralty Island, or Kootznoowoo, as sacred ground \u2013 a place of spiritual significance, ancestral knowledge and connection to a traditional subsistence lifestyle. Chartreuse-colored leaves of the spiny devil\u2019s club, mustard-colored seaweed on the rocks and citrus-scented spruce tips create a distinct rainforest aroma.<\/p>\n
Kootznoowoo means \u201cfortress of the bear\u201d, a fitting name for a landscape home to the highest density of brown bears in North America. The landscape carries the marks of centuries of stewardship \u2013 from strips of yellow cedar used for ceremonial baskets to totem poles reflecting intricate clan histories. Eagles soar high above, chalky heads on pivot as they watch for herring or juvenile salmon.<\/p>\n
This morning, Daniels wears a bright orange safety helmet, his hands calloused from carving a 12in (30cm) block of Sitka spruce into a brown bear\u2019s head. He lives in Angoon, 15 miles (24km) south of Cube Cove along the coast of the island, population 341. His clan house is shd\u2019een hit, the Steel house, and he comes from Deisheetaan Naahaachuneidii, the original Raven Beaver clan of the Edge of the Nation people.<\/p>\n
Daniels emerges onto the old logging road, and gestures across the valley. \u201cAll of this, it\u2019s not just land to us. It\u2019s our ancestors\u2019 land. We\u2019re here doing more than just fixing roads or removing culverts \u2013 we\u2019re reconnecting with our history, our identity and our future. Every culvert we remove, that\u2019s a promise to our children that the land will heal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jimmy Carter being given the name \u2018Haa Hoo Woo\u2019 by Chief Matthew of the Tlingit tribe during a White House ceremony in Washington, 4 May 1979. Photograph: Charles Tasnadi\/AP<\/p>\n