Anan Wildlife Observatory Permits

Anan Wildlife Observatory stands in the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska, managed by the USDA Forest Service. A covered timber deck sits on concrete piers above the creek, railed and screened along its edges, with a spiral steel staircase dropping to a lower viewing platform at the water. A gravel path reaches it through spruce and hemlock, past moss-covered logs and rock. The forest around the structure is dense and wet, with ferns and thick leafy undergrowth right to the edge of the decking. The photographs include brown bears standing in that undergrowth, black bears on a fallen mossy trunk and at the creek bank, and a bald eagle in flight low over the water. One image shows the arrival point — a float plane and an enclosed-cabin boat tied at a wooden dock in steady rain, forested hills fading into cloud behind — and another the timber steps that climb from a boulder shoreline past a small wooden hut into the trees.