It’s on par with the largest fjords in the world, found in Norway, Greenland, Chile, and New Zealand. It encompasses an astonishing 1,000 islands and 15,000 miles of shoreline, and is surrounded by the largest intact temperate rainforest in the world, the Tongass National Rainforest. Behind it is an icefield that is 90 miles long and 40 miles wide which feeds the ocean with fresh water from 40 large valley glaciers and 100 smaller ones. Water that is vital to the health of chinook, coho, chum, and pink salmon species, which in turn nurture a vast concentration of coastal brown bears and black bears, who also feed on abundant Sitka blacktail deer, grasses, and berries.