LONG AFTER OUR TRIP, the policy scuffles continue. This fall, the Senate was planning to consider the Andrews-Chabot amendment, which would cut roadbuilding subsidies to the Tongass, as part of the 2008 appropriations bill for the Interior Department. Also on the docket was the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2007, which would turn Clinton's rule into law. Both bills faced an uphill battle, having been introduced and stalled before.

Meanwhile, the Forest Service has been redrafting its long-range plan for the Tongass. The public wants wildness. The Forest Service would embrace a mandate to focus on recreation. So who, I wonder, supports whittling away at the old forest?

I call up Ron at Last Chance Gas.

"Ron," I say, "take the $40 million-a-year subsidy, divide it by the roughly 400 people employed logging and road building in the Tongass, and that comes out to $100,000, right?"

"OK," he says gamely.

"So would you rather have $100,000 a year or your job?"

He pauses. "I'd just as soon see the logging keep going," he says. "But I figure any day now, any year, they're gonna shut it down. Then I'd take the hundred thousand. Build me a nature lodge. Bring those tourists up."

Perfect! Ron runs the chalet, I run the slopes. Once again, the Tongass is wide open for business.