Tebenkof Bay Wilderness

Kuiu Wilderness
IUCN category Ib (wilderness area)
Overlooking Port Malmesbury in the Kuiu Wilderness on Kuiu Island, Alaska.
Location	Unorganized Borough, Alaska, USA
Nearest city	Kake, Alaska
Coordinates	56°17′18″N 134°04′59″W / 56.28833°N 134.08306°W / 56.28833; -134.08306Coordinates: 56°17′18″N 134°04′59″W / 56.28833°N 134.08306°W / 56.28833; -134.08306
Area	60,581 acres (245.16 km2)
Established	November 28, 1990
Governing body	U.S. Forest Service

The Kuiu Wilderness and Tebenkof Bay Wilderness are federally designated wilderness areas within the Tongass National Forest, located on Kuiu Island, Petersburg Census Area, Alaska. The 60,581-acre Kuiu and 66,812-acre Tebenkof Bay wildernesses are managed by the United States Forest Service as a single area — creating a 200-square-mile wilderness preserve covering the heart of the island. Together, the two areas protect old-growth temperate rainforests rising from coastal estuaries to subalpine meadows more than 2,000 feet in elevation, with a high point atop 3,355-foot Kuiu Mountain.

Tebenkof Bay Wilderness was created by Congress and signed into law on December 2, 1980 as a provision of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The Kuiu was created by Congress and signed into law on November 28, 1990 as part of the Tongass Timber Reform Act.

The landscape of Kuiu Island has much in common with other areas of the Alexander Archipelago — heavily-glaciated mountains alternating with narrow, deep fjords. Within the wilderness areas can be found a variety of ecological communities, including muskeg, Pacific temperate rain forest dominated by Sitka spruce and western hemlock, and alpine tundra zones as low as 2,000 feet above sea level. Prior to European colonization, significant populations of Tlingit native people lived on the island, particularly in Tebenkof Bay.