Misty Fjords National Monument
| Misty Fiords National Monument | |
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IUCN category IV (habitat/species management area)
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One of the thousands of ocean inlets at Misty Fiords.
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| Location | Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Alaska, United States |
| Nearest city | Ketchikan, AK |
| Coordinates | 55°37′18″N 130°36′26″W / 55.62167°N 130.60722°WCoordinates: 55°37′18″N 130°36′26″W / 55.62167°N 130.60722°W |
| Area | 2,294,343 acres (9,246 km2) |
| Established | December 1, 1978 |
| Governing body | U.S. Forest Service |
Misty Fiords National Monument (or Misty Fjords National Monument) is a national monument and wilderness area administered by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Tongass National Forest. Misty Fiords is about 40 miles (64 km) east of Ketchikan, Alaska, along the Inside Passage coast in extreme southeastern Alaska, comprising 2,294,343 acres (928,488 ha) of Tongass National Forest in Alaska's Panhandle. All but 151,832 acres (61,444 ha) are designated as wilderness.
Congress reserved the remainder for the Quartz Hill molybdenum deposit, possibly the largest such mineral deposit in the world. The national monument was originally proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter in December 1978 as Misty Fiords National Monument, using the authorization of the Antiquities Act and became a part of an ongoing political struggle between the federal government and the State of Alaska over land use policy and authority that finally led to the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. In that law, it was statutorily established as Misty Fjords National Monument.
John Muir compared the area with Yosemite Valley for its similar geology and glacial morphology. Light-colored granite, about 50 to 70 million years old (Eocene Epoch to Cretaceous Period) has been sculpted by glaciers that gouged deep U-shaped troughs throughout the monument. Many of the glacial valleys are filled with sea water and are called "canals", but they are not man-made in any way; the walls of these valleys are near-vertical and often rise 2,000 to 3,000 feet (600 to 900 m) above sea level, and drop 1,000 feet (300 m) below it.
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