xtruss

[xtruss]

Marijuana Is Too Strong Now

As Weed Has Become Easier To Obtain, It Has Become Harder To Smoke.

—. By Malcolm Ferguson

Brian Finke/Gallery Stock

A Strange Thing Has Happened on the path to marijuana legalization. Users across all ages and experience levels are noticing that a drug they once turned to for fun and relaxation now triggers existential dread and paranoia. “The density of the nugs is crazy, they’re so sticky,” a friend from college texted me recently. “I solo’d a joint from the dispensary recently and was tweaking just walking around.” (Translation for the non-pot-savvy: This strain of marijuana is not for amateurs.)

In 2022, the federal government reported that, in samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, average levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC—the psychoactive compound in weed that makes you feel high—had more than tripled compared with 25 years earlier, from 5 to 16 percent. That may understate how strong weed has gotten. Walk into any dispensary in the country, legal or not, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single product advertising such a low THC level. Most strains claim to be at least 20 to 30 percent THC by weight; concentrated weed products designed for vaping can be labeled as up to 90 percent.

For the average weed smoker who wants to take a few hits without getting absolutely blitzed, this is frustrating. For some, it can be dangerous. In the past few years, reports have swelled of people, especially teens, experiencing short- and long-term “marijuana-induced psychosis,” with consequences including hospitalizations for chronic vomiting and auditory hallucinations of talking birds. Multiple studies have drawn a link between heavy use of high-potency marijuana, in particular, and the development of psychological disorders, including schizophrenia, although a causal connection hasn’t been proved.

“It’s entirely possible that this new kind of cannabis—very strong, used in these very intensive patterns—could do permanent brain damage to teenagers because that’s when the brain is developing a lot,” Keith Humphreys, a Stanford psychiatry professor and a former drug-policy adviser to the Obama administration, told me. Humphreys stressed that the share of people who have isolated psychotic episodes on weed will be “much larger” than the number of people who end up permanently altered. But even a temporary bout of psychosis is pretty bad.

One of the basic premises of the legalization movement is that marijuana, if not harmless, is pretty close to it—arguably much less dangerous than alcohol. But much of the weed being sold today is not the same stuff that people were getting locked up for selling in the 1990s and 2000s. You don’t have to be a War on Drugs apologist to be worried about the consequences of unleashing so much super-high-potency weed into the world.

The high that most adult weed smokers remember from their teenage years is most likely one produced by “mids,” as in, middle-tier weed. In the pre-legalization era, unless you had a connection with access to top-shelf strains such as Purple Haze and Sour Diesel, you probably had to settle for mids (or, one step down, “reggie,” as in regular weed) most of the time. Today, mids are hard to come by.

The simplest explanation for this is that the casual smokers who pine for the mids and reggies of their youth aren’t the industry’s top customers. Serious stoners are. According to research by Jonathan P. Caulkins, a public-policy professor at Carnegie Mellon, people who report smoking more than 25 times a month make up about a third of marijuana users but account for about two-thirds of all marijuana consumption. Such regular users tend to develop a high tolerance, and their tastes drive the industry’s cultivation decisions.

The industry is not shy about this fact. In May, I attended the National Cannabis Investment Summit in Washington D.C., where investors used the terms high-quality and potent almost interchangeably. They told me that high THC percentages do well with heavy users—the dedicated wake-and-bakers and the joint-before-bed crowd. “Thirty percent THC is the new 20 percent,” Ryan Cohen, a Michigan-based cultivator, told me. “Our target buyer is the guy who just worked 40 hours a week and wants to get high as fuck on a budget.”

Smaller producers might conceivably carve out a niche catering to those of us who prefer a milder high. But because of the way the legal weed market has developed, they’re struggling just to exist. As states have been left alone to determine what their legal weed markets will look like, limited licensing has emerged as the favored apparatus. That approach has led to legal weed markets becoming dominated by large, well-financed “multistate operators,” in industry jargon.

Across the country, MSOs are buying up licenses, acquiring smaller brands, and lobbying politicians to stick prohibitions on home-growing into their legalization bills. The result is an illusion of endless choice and a difficult climate for the little guy. Minnesota’s 15 medical dispensaries are owned by two MSOs. All 23 of Virginia’s are owned by three different MSOs. Some states have tried to lower barriers to entry, but the big chains still tend to overpower the market. (Notable exceptions are California and Colorado, which have a longer history with legal marijuana licensing, and where the markets are less dominated by mega-chains.) Despite the profusion of stores in some states and the apparent variety of strains on the shelf, most people who walk into a dispensary will choose from a limited number of suppliers that maximize for THC percentage.

If the Incentives of the Market point to ever-higher concentrations of THC, one path to milder varieties would be government regulation. But legal weed exists largely in a regulatory vacuum.

Six years ago, my colleague Annie Lowrey observed that “the lack of federal involvement in legalization has meant that marijuana products are not being safety-tested like pharmaceuticals; measured and dosed like food products; subjected to agricultural-safety and pesticide standards like crops; and held to labeling standards like alcohol.” Very little has changed since she wrote that. Some states have limited THC percentages per serving for edibles, but only Vermont and Connecticut have potency caps on so-called flower, meaning the old-fashioned kind of weed that you smoke in leaf form. And then there’s the Wild West of legal hemp-derived THC products, which functionally have no potency limits at all.

Marijuana is still illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act. States have been allowed to do their own thing, but the lack of federal legalization has meant a lack of federal regulation. In May, the Department of Justice officially proposed rescheduling marijuana from Schedule 1 under the CSA, where heroin is, to Schedule 3, where ketamine and anabolic steroids are. That change, if it happens, will dramatically expand medical-marijuana research and access, but it won’t affect the recreational market at all.

To establish an approach to marijuana legalization that protects consumers and gives them real choice and information about what they’re using, Congress would need to fully deschedule weed, not just reschedule it. Descheduling marijuana would circumvent the legal baggage of Schedule 3, allowing the federal government to ease into a nationally standardized set of health and safety regulations for recreational use, not just medical.

Such a change would ideally allow the federal government, particularly the Food and Drug Administration, the power to regulate marijuana in the same way they regulate other uncontrolled substances such as alcohol and tobacco—by overseeing packaging, advertising, and distribution. Sellers could be required to create clear, standardized nutrition-fact-style labels that indicate true THC percentage, recommended dosages, and professional suggestions for what to do in the case of a bad high. A full descheduling would also shorten the research knowledge gap, because private marijuana companies could run FDA-approved tests on their products and develop modern regulatory strategies that align with public-health standards.

The history of drug enforcement in America was long one of discriminatory, draconian enforcement. But the shift toward legal weed has tacked too far in the opposite direction. If marijuana is to be sold legally, consumers should know what they’re buying and have confidence that someone is making sure it’s safe. If we can agree as a society that getting high on weed shouldn’t be illegal, we can also agree that smoking weed shouldn’t involve dissociating at a house party or running into the middle of a snowstorm because you think imaginary bad guys are after you. The sad irony of legalization is that as weed has become easier to obtain, it has become harder to smoke.

— Malcolm Ferguson is a Former Assistant Editor at The Atlantic.

[xtruss]

[xtruss]

Swedish Church Being Moved Down The Road Before A Mine Swallows Its Town

— By Associated Press | August 19, 2025

The Kiruna Church — Called Kiruna Kyrka in Swedish — and its belfry are being moved this week along a 3-mile route east as part of the town’s relocation. AFP via Getty Images

How do you move one of Sweden’s most beloved wooden churches down the road? With a little engineering, a lot of prayer — and some Eurovision for good luck.

The Kiruna Church — called Kiruna Kyrka in Swedish — and its belfry are being moved this week along a 5-kilometer (3-mile) route east as part of the town’s relocation. It’s happening because the world’s largest underground iron-ore mine is threatening to swallow the town.

This week, thousands of visitors have descended on Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost town, at 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the Arctic Circle. It’s home to roughly 23,000 people, including members of the Sami Indigenous people, spread over nearly 19,500 square kilometers (7,528 square miles).

Lena Tjärnberg, the church’s vicar, kicked off the move with a blessing Tuesday morning after the church was lifted on beams to be wheeled across town.

Thousands of spectators lined the streets, bundled up in layers for strong winds and temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit), as the church inched along for hours at a glacial pace. The journey is scheduled to end on Wednesday afternoon.

The move is happening now because the world’s largest underground iron-ore mine is threatening to swallow the town. AFP via Getty Images

The Arctic Circle is home to roughly 23,000 people, including members of the Sami Indigenous People, spread over nearly 19,500 square kilometers (7,528 square miles). AFP via Getty Images

A Gift From The Mining Company

In 2001, the Swedish people voted the wooden church the “best building of all time, built before 1950” in a poll connected to the Ministry of Culture. Built on a hill so worshippers could overlook Kiruna, the Swedish Lutheran church was designed to emulate the Sami style as a gift from LKAB, the state-owned mining company.

The Kiruna mine itself dates back to 1910, and the church was completed in 1912. Its neo-Gothic exterior is considered the town’s most distinctive building, and tourists regularly traveled there before it was closed a year ago to prepare for the relocation. It’s set to reopen in the new location at the end of 2026.

Tjärnberg said the final service in the old spot was bittersweet.

“The last day you go down the stairs and close the church door, you know it’s going to be several years before you can open it — and in a new place,” she said. “We don’t know how it’s going to feel to open the door.”

People gather to watch the moving of the wooden Kiruna Church, in Kiruna, Sweden on August 19, 2025. TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

A Livestreamed Spectacle

This week’s move has turned into a two-day, highly choreographed spectacle, run by LKAB and featuring an appearance by Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf.

Musical performances include a set from KAJ, Sweden’s 2025 Eurovision entry that was the bookies’ favorite to win this year’s contest. It lost out to the classically trained countertenor JJ of Austria.

SVT, Sweden’s national broadcaster, is livestreaming and billing it as “The Great Church Walk” to play off its success with the spring showing of “The Great Moose Migration” that has enthralled millions of viewers annually since 2019.

Known for both the Midnight Sun and the Northern Lights, Kiruna and the surrounding area is a major draw year-round for visitors to Swedish Lapland.

The region also features the Aurora Sky Station, the Icehotel, and Kebnekaise, the Nordic country’s highest mountain.

British tourists Anita and Don Haymes had already trekked to Kiruna twice before this year’s trip. When they heard about the church’s move, they changed their itinerary to ensure they’d be here for it.

“It’s an amazing feat that they are doing,” Anita Haymes said Sunday. “It’ll be interesting to see it moving, unbelievable.”

Kiruna’s Old Wooden Church, which sits on a structure relocation rig with wheels, is moved during a two-day relocation trip to a new site next to a cemetery, according to reports. Reuters

Swedish spectator Johan Arveli traveled 10 hours to be part of Tuesday’s crowd.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a couple of years,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect. I had to see it because it’s a weird thing and a big thing.”

But not everyone is thrilled about LKAB’s extravaganza. Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen, chairman of one of the Sami reindeer herding organizations in Kiruna, said LKAB’s plans for a new mine could threaten reindeer migration routes and imperil the livelihood of herders in the area.

The mechanics behind the move

The move of Kiruna’s town center has been in the works since 2004. As the mine expanded deeper underground, residents began seeing cracks in buildings and roads.

In order to reach a new depth of 1,365 meters (4,478 feet) — and to prevent Kiruna from being swallowed up — officials began moving buildings to a new downtown at a safe distance from the mine.

As of July, 25 buildings had been lifted onto beams and wheeled east. Sixteen, including the church, remain.

People look at Wooden Kiruna Church at its final location after a two-day move from the old town to the new city center, in Kiruna, northern Sweden, on August 20. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

At approximately 40 meters (131 feet) wide with a weight of 672 metric tons (741 tons), the church required extra effort. Engineers widened a major road from 9 meters to 24 meters (30 to 79 feet) and dismantled a viaduct to make way for a new intersection.

A driver, using a large control box, is piloting the church through the route as it travels roughly 12 hours over Tuesday and Wednesday, with a pause each day for fika, the traditional Swedish afternoon coffee break.

It’s expected to move at a varying pace between 0.5 and 1.5 kilometers per hour (0.31 and 0.93 miles per hour).

Frida Albertsson, who moved to Kiruna six months ago, said she was initially “very nervous” for the church’s move.

[xtruss]

First Recorded Human Meteorite Strike Still A Wild Tale 70 Years On

— 18 August 2025 | By Matthew Wilson

Anne Hodges was left with a large bruise. Jay Leviton/The Life Images Collection/Getty Images

Ann Hodges never intended to be famous, but in 1954 she found herself thrust into the national spotlight when her afternoon nap was interrupted by a falling meteorite.

The Alabama woman has the distinction of being the first documented case of a person being struck by a meteorite. She survived with a bruised hip.

In June, a man nearly joined her exclusive club when small space rocks pierced his roof in McDonough, Georgia, missing him by 14 feet, the New York Times reported. The fragments – from a meteorite that researchers say likely formed 4.56 billion years ago – dented his floor instead.

In the more than 70 years since Hodges was struck, her strange tale remains a source of fascination. Mary Beth Prondzinski with the Alabama Museum of Natural History, where the meteorite is on exhibit, told Business Insider, "It's one of those local legends that not too many people know about."

Here's what happened to Hodges and the meteorite.

Mayor Ed J Howard, Ann Hodges, and Police Chief WD Ashcraft inspected the hole in the ceiling. University of Alabama Museums

The Sylacauga meteorite, which is also called the Hodges meteorite, probably broke off the asteroid 1685 Toro.

1685 Toro, a mid-sized asteroid, has been classified by NASA JPL as a "Near Earth Asteroid" because of its orbit's proximity to Earth. Its size is similar to the island of Manhattan.

An asteroid is a rocky object in space that orbits the sun. When an asteroid or a piece of one enters the Earth's atmosphere, it becomes a meteor. What remains after impact is a meteorite.

Part of 1685 Toro hit a woman in the 1950s. NASA/Newsmakers/Getty Images

On the afternoon of November 30, 1954, locals in Sylacauga, Alabama, reported a bright streak in the sky.

At a time when both the threat of an atomic bomb and little green men in flying saucers invaded public fear, it was perhaps unsurprising that residents in the small Alabama town started calling 911. The Decatur Daily reported that many people thought they were witnessing a plane crash.

Ann Hodges, with her husband, rented a house in the Oak Grove community. Incredibly, across the street was the Comet Drive-In Theater, which had a neon sign depicting a comet falling through the sky, the Decatur Daily reported.

A part of the meteor crashed through the roof of Ann Hodges' home.

Hodges, who was 34 at the time, had been home with her mother on the afternoon of November 30. The meteorite crashed through the roof of Hodges' home at 2:46 p.m, Slate Magazine reported.

"Ann Hodges was taking a nap on her living room couch and she was under a blanket, which probably saved her life somewhat," Prondzinski said. "The meteorite came down through the roof in the living room and it ricocheted off a stand-up console radio that was in the room and landed on her hip."

Her mother, who was in another room, ran to her daughter's assistance when she heard her scream. In the aftermath, neither Hodges nor her mother knew what had happened.

"All she knew is that something had hit her," Prondzinski said. "They found the meteorite, this big rock, and they couldn't figure out how it had got there."

It weighed around 8.5 pounds.

Prondzinski said the meteorite is a chondrite or stony meteorite and composed of iron and nickel. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the meteorite is an estimated 4.5 billion years old.

When the meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere, it broke apart. One fragment hit Hodges while another was located a few miles away. A farmer, Julius Kempis McKinney, discovered the second fragment while driving a mule-drawn wagon and later sold it for enough money to buy both a house and car, the Decatur Daily reported.

Neighbors and law enforcement rushed to Ann Hodges' home.

"Before you knew it, everyone in town was surrounding the house wanting to see what had happened," Prondzinski said.

"In those days they didn't have Facebook, but word still traveled quickly," she added.

A doctor and the police were called to the home. Prondzinski said it was Mayor Ed Howard and the police chief who discovered the hole in the ceiling where the meteorite had crashed through.

The Decatur Daily reported the impact of the meteorite left a large "grapefruit"-sized bruise on Hodges' hip.

"She had this incredible bruise on her hip," Prondzinski told Business Insider. "She was taken to the hospital, not because she was so severely injured that she needed to be hospitalized, but because she was very distraught by the whole incident. She was a very nervous person, and she didn't like all the notoriety or all the people around."

Hodges' husband, Eugene, arrived home from work to find his house surrounded by a crowd of people.

Hodges' radio may have saved her from being seriously injured.

A large hole was left in Hodges' house. Jay Leviton/The Life Images Collection/Getty Images

"The fact that it came through the roof, that slowed its trajectory, and the fact that it did bounce off the radio – if she had been lying under the radio, it would have broken her leg or her back. It probably wouldn't have killed her, but it would have done a lot more damage to her," Prondzinski said.

The Air Force confiscated the meteorite so they could determine its origin.

"The Air Force looked at it because they thought it was a flying saucer and all this other wild and crazy stuff," Prondzinski said.

After it was confirmed a meteorite, the Hodgeses faced a lengthy litigation process to acquire ownership of it. Their landlord, Birdie Guy, believe the meteorite belonged to her because she owned the house.

"Suing is the only way she'll ever get it," Hodges told reporters at the time. "I think God intended it for me. After all, it hit me!"

The Decatur Daily News reported Guy wanted money to fix the house's roof. Litigation went on for a year, and Prondzinski said Guy settled the case for $500. The house eventually caught fire and was demolished to make way for a mobile home park.

Hodges became an overnight celebrity and was even featured on a game show.

"She became famous for 15 minutes. She had all these photo shoots. She was invited to go to New York City to be on Garry Moore's show '["I've Got a Secret"] where the panel had to guess what's her profession or what happened to her, why she is a notable figure," Prondzinski said.

Hodges would receive fan mail from churches, children, and educators asking about the meteorite, but she never answered any of them, leaving it to her lawyer.

"She was a very quiet person. She was a very private person," Prondzinski said. "She did not like having all the notoriety."

Hodges decided to donate the meteorite to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

Part of the meteor is on display at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. University of Alabama Museums

"By the time she had got the meteorite in her possession, she was so sick of the whole thing. She said, 'You can have it,'" Prondzinski said.

All Hodges asked in return was for the museum to reimburse her for her attorney fees.

Prondzinski said the meteorite created problems between Hodges and her husband, Eugene. Her husband wanted to make money off the meteorite but failed to secure a buyer. The two eventually divorced in 1964.

In 1972, aged 52, Hodges died of kidney failure in a nursing home.

Hodges is the first documented person to have been hit by a meteorite. Recently, a man in Georgia narrowly missed being hit by another.

"She's the only one who's ever been hit by a meteorite and lived to tell about it. Because of that, the meteorite has been appraised at over a million dollars," Prondzinski said.

In an interview with National Geographic, Florida State College astronomer Michael Reynolds said, "You have a better chance of getting hit by a tornado and a bolt of lightning and a hurricane all at the same time."

There have been some near misses in the years since Hodges was hit.

Most recently, on June 26, people in Southern states reported seeing a fireball fly across the sky, and pieces of a meteorite hit a house in McDonough, Georgia, with some piercing its roof, denting its flooring, and missing a resident inside. He likely heard what sounded like a gunshot.

"I suspect that he heard three simultaneous things," said Scott Harris, a researcher at the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences' department of geology, the university reported. "One was the collision with his roof, one was a tiny cone of a sonic boom and a third was it impacting the floor all in the same moment.

"There was enough energy when it hit the floor that it pulverized part of the material down to literal dust fragments."

Harris studied the rocks and concluded the meteorite could have formed 4.56 billion years ago, making it older than the Earth. It is still being studied at the university.

Every day, Earth is hit with more than 100 tons of space dust and debris.

According to NASA, about once a year a car-sized asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere but burns up before it can touch down.

One expert told Live Science that while it's impossible to know for sure how many asteroids hit Earth each year, he estimated "about 6,100 meteorite falls per year over the entire Earth, and about 1,800 over the land."

Most of these go undetected, but occasionally they'll capture the public's attention, like Hodges' meteorite.

Meteor Crater in Arizona is almost a mile wide. Marli Miller/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

For instance, in 1992 a 26-pound meteorite landed on a red Chevy Malibu in New York, and in 2013, one exploded over Russia. There has also been evidence of a meteorite killing a man and injuring another in 1888. Meteor Crater, which is almost a mile wide, in Arizona shows the impact a large meteorite can have.

Prondzinski told Business Insider that in the years since Hodges was struck, her story remains popular, and people have contacted the museum about using the story in movies, plays, and even a graphic novel.

[xtruss]

[xtruss]

Under Threat

— Global Times | August 18, 2025

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

[xtruss]

Thank You Mr. Jeremy Corbyn!

[xtruss]

Fire In The Hole: The Indigenous Crews Blasting The Alaskan Rainforest To Save It

After A Historic Land Buyback By The US Forest Service, Tlingit Crew Members Are Demolishing Culverts To Restore Streams, Salmon Runs And Cultural History Deep In The Tongass National Forest

— Brendan Jones On Admiralty Island, Alaska | Sunday 17 August 2025

The 17M-Acre Tongass is by Far the Largest National Forest in the United States. Photograph: blickwinkel/Alamy

The morning begins with a sense of anticipation – the calm before 1,200lbs of explosives detonate a stream culvert buried 10ft in Alaska’s Tongass national forest. Jamie Daniels, 53, and his crew of Tlingit forestry workers take cover in a glade of alders.

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.

Crouched 1,000ft away from the blast site, Jack Greenhalgh, the US Forest Service master blaster veteran, shouts: “Fire in the hole!” He presses a remote detonator. Seconds later, four 50lb bags of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (Anfo) go off.

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.

“Stand by until we clear the area,” Greenhalgh mumbles, climbing out from behind his berm to inspect the damage – or success, depending on how one looks at it.

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

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 – by far the largest national forest in the United States.

The Tlingit have long considered Admiralty Island, or Kootznoowoo, as sacred ground – a place of spiritual significance, ancestral knowledge and connection to a traditional subsistence lifestyle. Chartreuse-colored leaves of the spiny devil’s club, mustard-colored seaweed on the rocks and citrus-scented spruce tips create a distinct rainforest aroma.

Kootznoowoo means “fortress of the bear”, 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 – 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.

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’s 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’een hit, the Steel house, and he comes from Deisheetaan Naahaachuneidii, the original Raven Beaver clan of the Edge of the Nation people.

Daniels emerges onto the old logging road, and gestures across the valley. “All of this, it’s not just land to us. It’s our ancestors’ land. We’re here doing more than just fixing roads or removing culverts – we’re reconnecting with our history, our identity and our future. Every culvert we remove, that’s a promise to our children that the land will heal.”

Jimmy Carter being given the name ‘Haa Hoo Woo’ by Chief Matthew of the Tlingit tribe during a White House ceremony in Washington, 4 May 1979. Photograph: Charles Tasnadi/AP

In the 1970s, Daniels’s relatives along with others from Angoon fought to protect the island from clearcutting, holding bake sales, bingo games and raffles to fund trips to Washington DC. In 1978, elders met with Jimmy Carter. In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (Anilca) formalized protections for the Kootznoowoo wilderness, now part of the Admiralty Island national monument.

However, that designation came with an asterisk: the sale of 22,890 acres of ancestral Tlingit hunting and fishing grounds to the Shee Atiká Corporation, one of the 13 Native corporations created during the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.

Over the next three decades, more than 80% of that land was clearcut. Culverts, like the one the team is blowing up today, were inserted, blocking the passage of baby salmon upriver.

In 2020, the forest service purchased the Cube Cove land from Shee Atiká for $18m. The agency, alongside Kootznoowoo Inc, the Indigenous corporation based in Angoon, and SAWC, embarked on a five-year project to restore ecological functions, reconnect streams and support the traditional practices of the Tlingit people. The addition of Cube Cove signified the largest transfer of land into formal wilderness designation in the forest service’s history.

“The purchase of this land opened a door,” Daniels reflects. “It gave us the chance to reconnect with these lands in a way that honors our ancestors and what they knew – how to live in harmony with nature, not dominate it.”

‘Kootz’ crew member Walt Washington. Photograph: Brendan Jones/The Guardian

When he was growing up in Angoon, Daniels recalls, his uncles and cousins talked about hunting and fishing in the area before the clearcutting.

“My grandmother spoke of a ‘small sockeye run’ from here. I always thought she was talking about just a few fish. But actually, it’s thousands of fish – just kokanee salmon, which look like small sockeye.”

Since 2022, Daniels and his crew – including his 24-year-old son Justin; 33-year-old Roger Williams; and 41-year-old Walt Washington – have been working to undo decades of damage.

“We’re trying to get this forest back on its feet,” Daniels explains. “But it’s not just the trees. We’re restoring the entire ecosystem: the fish, the wildlife and the cultural traditions connected to this land.”

A Legacy of Restoration

Following the all-clear from Greenhalgh, SAWC watershed scientist Kelsey Dean slings a forest service Pulaski – part ax and part adze – over her shoulder and follows the old logging road to the blast site. She describes dense thickets of spruce as “dog hair trees” where deer can’t forage, and bears can’t hunt deer.

This six-day hitch we’re participating in is just the second blasting session in a much larger effort. At the end of five years, the team will have removed 80 of the 89 culverts left by loggers, and three bridges, Dean says.

“We’re restoring habitat, improving hydrologic function and strengthening the land’s resilience. After that, it’s hands off,” she says, releasing the Pulaski to underline the point.

Up ahead, a reddish-brown haze settles over the blast site. The crew gathers along the banks and stares into a triangular trench where the culvert once ran.

Sean Rielly, a former wilderness ranger and forest service recreation specialist, slaloms down the mud and begins removing shards of the shattered culvert. Daniels and his crew follow, pushing boulders out of the new streambed. Suddenly, the goop of mud and alder leaves releases, flooding downhill. After an hour of work, a small mountain stream flows freely.

“Now,” Dean says, “we watch for fish.”

The fish are anadromous, she explains – a fancy word that means they spawn and then die. Their decaying bodies provide food for the carnivorous spruce, hemlock and cedar trees in a healthy stand of old growth. The salmon also sustain the brown bears prowling the island, their coats glossy with salmon oil, their humps shifting as they patrol the rivers, waiting for the salmon to arrive.

A truck carrying recently cut old-growth trees in the Tongass national forest on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, on 2 July 2021. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

The Cube Cove project reaches its midpoint at a moment when the Trump administration renews logging efforts in the Tongass. In June, the US Department of Agriculture announced plans to remove the Roadless Rule protections, exposing 7m acres of the Tongass to extensive clearcuts. Ecologists warn that cutting much of the old growth could release massive amounts of carbon stored in the trees.

In fact, Dean says, when federal funding dried up, Cube Cove progress stalled. Luckily, SAWC was able to use wetlands mitigation money from the state of Alaska to account for the shortfall.

“It’s unfortunate, what’s happening. The region is just now starting to recover from the violence of clearcutting,” says Rob Cadmus, director of SAWC. “At Cube Cove, what we’re doing essentially is cleaning up the mess left from logging. Going back to those timber bonanza days would be unconscionable, from an economic, environmental and psychic standpoint.”

Federal subsidies have long made old-growth logging in the Tongass artificially profitable. By selling timber below market value and covering high costs like road building and transportation, the government incentivizes larger logging companies from the lower 48 to cut down trees, despite the fact that south-east Alaska’s economy is shifting toward eco-tourism and fishing – industries that depend on preserving the Tongass intact, rather than transforming the mountains into a moonscape, with no habitat left for salmon to spawn.

As the crew works with hand tools, Dean inspects the flow of water, while Greenhalgh examines the composition of dirt. The two assess whether a second “cleanup shot” of explosives might be necessary before abandoning the site. Hand tools can take care of the rest, they decide.

Master blaster Jack Greenhalgh writing notes. Photograph: Brendan Jones/The Guardian

As the sun sets over the mouth of the valley, the group begins a 3.5-mile hike along the logging road back to the ATVs and forest service truck. Along the way, Daniels nods toward an alternating series of oven-mitt-shaped prints in the ground – evidence of the island’s apex predators.

“Bear have survived here for thousands of years,” he says. “And so have we. All of that makes what’s happening today feel really personal.”

Rielly catches up and talks about all the time he spent behind a desk justifying the need for mechanized equipment and explosives and the minimum tool necessary to help the region’s recovery. In 2024, a youth group from Angoon removed a culvert barely beneath the ground using only standard forest service hand tools: Pulaskis, shovels, mattocks and rakes.

The effort took seven days.

“If we don’t do this work, the land will continue to degrade. Culverts clog, landslides are triggered, watersheds are blocked,” Rielly says. “This is the only way to get the job done quickly, especially in such remote terrain.”

Through the scrim of spruce saplings, stumps of ancient old-growth loom: cedar, hemlock and spruce recorded at more than 1,000 years old. The group crosses the Ward Creek bridge, held in place by steel girders 8ft wide covered by creosote timbers. These will be removed at the end of the project, when the crew erases their footprints. On the other side of the bridge, Daniels, Washington and Williams hop on the ATVs, while the rest of the group pile into the truck for the 12-mile trip back to camp.

A totem pole at the entrance of Náay I’waans, the Great House/the Whale House, the only traditional Haida longhouse left in the US, in the town of Kasaan in the Tongass national forest on Prince of Wales Island, on 4 July 2021. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

After showers in the ocean, the group congregates around a driftwood bonfire on the beach, where thousands of logs were once dumped and rafted together, on the way to the mill. Dean sips from a can of lime sparkling water – a treat in the remote area. Dressed now in flannel pajamas, Washington perches on a rock. He describes his work in the forest as engaging in a cycle of “destruction and renewal”.

“The land will heal itself if left alone,” he says. “But sometimes you have to set a bone before it can heal properly. I know that this hard work we’re doing out here is for my children, and for their children down the line.”

“What you’re seeing here is a version of the next generation of conservation – partnerships that connect people, place and purpose,” Cadmus of SAWC says. “When we’re out here working side by side, we build a bond that’s stronger than words. At the end of the day, that’s what heals us. We’re all in service to the land.”