Point Baker is a cape on the south shore of Sumner Strait at the north end of Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska, where a small community with the same name lines the shore of a narrow water passage, about 101 miles (163 km) northwest of Ketchikan and 49 miles (79 km) west of Wrangell, Alaska. Prince of Wales Island is 135 miles (217 km) long, 65 miles (105 km) wide, and has an area of 1.6 million acres (667,440 ha). During the Pleistocene glaciation the island was blanketed by ice over 3,000 feet (910 m) thick, burying all but its highest peaks. When the ice retreated, ancient peoples settled the coast for millennia until displaced by the Tlingit, who migrated from the interior. Their name for the island, Taan, means ‘sea lion.’ In the late 18th century the Kaigani Haida from Haida Gwaii occupied the island’s southern half. They established themselves chiefly at Kasaan and controlled the southwest coast—from Cape Chacon to Suemez Island, including Dall Island. In the north the Henya (or Henyakwan) Tlingit enjoyed exclusive rights to resources from Point Baker to Suemez Island, including Kosciusko, Heceta, and other islets separating the island from the Pacific Ocean, while the Stikine Tlingit controlled the area east to the Stikine River. European explorers arrived in the 18th century from Russia, Spain, Britain, and the United States. In 1793 Captain George Vancouver named the southern Alexander Archipelago the ‘Prince of Wales Archipelago’ after King George IV, and Point Baker after Joseph Baker, first lieutenant on the HMS Discovery. Sailing southwest in Sumner Strait from the Stikine River, he rounded the cape and found safe harbor at Port Protection. His discovery of shelter significantly influenced subsequent maritime navigation in the region. The Tlingit call the passage between Point Baker and Prince of Wales Island X̱aaséedák’u, or ‘small pass through which the war party goes at high tide.’ Although absent from Vancouver’s journals, a Tlingit fish camp thrived at Point Baker for trade and subsistence.

Salmon returning primarily to the Stikine River migrate through Sumner Strait, exploiting flooding tidal currents along its eastern shore. Strong tidal fronts at Point Baker aggregate plankton, forage fish and whales—a phenomenon that likely spurred seasonal Tlingit camps for centuries. Following the 1867 Alaska Purchase, Americans flocked here to exploit whales, herring and salmon. They built fish traps on the Stikine and established salmon canneries at Wrangell. President Theodore Roosevelt established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve in 1902 and proclaimed the Tongass National Forest in 1907. The two merged in 1908 into a 16.7‑million‑acre unit managed by the US Forest Service, with further expansions in 1909 and 1925. In 1919 a floating fish packer visited Point Baker to buy salmon from overnight-anchored boats. During the 1920s, up to 100 tents occupied by fishers lined the harbor. This activity continued until the 1930s, when the Forest Service opened the area for private homesites and fishermen built cabins along the sheltered waterways of Point Baker and Port Protection. The first store opened in 1941, followed by a floating post office in 1942; in 1955 Point Baker was withdrawn from the Tongass. Timber cutting in southeast Alaska began early in the 20th century as small hand-logging operations targeting high‑value trees near tidal wetlands and protected beaches. In the 1950s, partly to aid post–World War II recovery, the US Forest Service signed 50‑year contracts with the Ketchikan Pulp Company and the Alaska Pulp Company in Sitka. Meant to complement independent sawlog operations, the contracts enabled the companies to depress log prices, force smaller operators out of business and become major polluters. Virtually all Tongass timber sales were bought by one of these companies until they closed in the 1990s. Today, Tongass management remains one of the nation’s most divisive environmental conflicts.

In 1973, Port Protection fisherman and homesteader Alan Stein established the Point Baker Association to protest clear cut logging near Point Baker. In 1975 the group launched a federal lawsuit that halted the operation, prompting Congress to pass the National Forest Management Act of 1976. The act required the US Forest Service to develop management plans for national forests, set timber sale standards and regulate harvesting to prevent permanent damage. Today the Forest Service must use a systematic, interdisciplinary approach to manage resources and assess the nation’s renewable resource demand along with environmental and economic impacts. In 1989 Point Baker residents filed a lawsuit demanding buffer strips on all Tongass salmon streams and protection for Salmon Bay—a neighboring watershed with a key salmon stream on the northeast coast of Prince of Wales Island. The following year the Tongass Timber Reform Act mandated 100‑foot (30 m) buffer strips along all salmon streams, although only part of the Salmon Bay watershed was safeguarded. Despite pervasive clear cutting, the Tongass remains one of America’s largest natural carbon sinks, making its long‑term health vital to mitigating global warming. Yet warmer, drier conditions have already triggered a widespread die‑off of yellow cedar—one of the first species to exhibit direct effects of climate change—while hemlock, the region’s most prevalent tree, now faces a sawfly infestation that damages its needles. Even as forest health falters, political and industrial interests push to clear cut millions more acres. However, the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule kept around 9 million acres (3,642,174 ha) of the Tongass out of reach of timber companies. These areas, which contain some of the oldest and largest trees, are crucial to the forest’s overall health. In 2021 the award‑winning film Understory documented the struggle to preserve the largest remaining temperate rainforest on earth. Read more here and here. Explore more of Point Baker and Sumner Strait here: