One of the benefits of living in Alaska is that the rest of the country tends to forget about you. The frozen north, may they remain happy while gnawing on whale.

As with so many debates, the feud over whether to cut or not to cut in Southeast Alaska's Tongass National Forest - at 17 million acres, by far the largest woods in the United States - can be distilled to bumper stickers.

Last year, ADF&G announced that just under 29,000 tons of herring would be available to permit holders for the 2012 fishery -- by far the largest quota in the history of Sitka's sac roe fishery.